[magv]

> If you ever got to being a candidate for, say, a national senior-school physics competition, you'd be transferred to region's best teachers. They would train you like a circus dog [...] but it wouldn't make you any good physicist.

Being one of such people, this is not entirely accurate.

For one thing, there is no practice of transferring students to best teachers, you have to want it get into the better schools. Another thing is that the best teachers are precisely the people who understand and will show you the essence of physics (or whatever your subject is).

Yes, a lot of time is devoted to competitions with repetitive problem set (the olympiads). But then, lots of time is devoted to non-competition topics. There are also competitions with open problems which require lots of imagination and original research on your part (e.g. ТЮФ, ТРИЗ and МАН for those who know). Some of the better schools require each student to complete a research project in his subject of choice.

My point here is that "circus dog training" is not at all correct.