Translating the shortcomings of a primary school student

Question

我是许晨曦，一个活泼开朗的小男孩，圆圆的脑袋，一头乌黑的短发，明亮的眼睛，大大鼻子，还有一张不怎么会说话的嘴巴。

我喜欢打羽毛球，溜冰、下棋……但我最喜欢的是打羽毛球，每次和小朋友打得汗流浃背，痛快极了。

我也有缺点，做作业马虎，有时不直接看节目就直接写下去。

这就是我，我想在这个学期改掉这个缺点，做一个好学生。

Source: http://www.zuowen8.com/a/275384.html (third text)

I study Chinese by translating children's essays. In this particular essay, the meaning of the emboldened phrase eludes me.

The students begins the paragraph by saying: "I also have weaknesses: I am carefree when it comes to school assignments...". I lose it shortly afterwards.

I am confused by:

• 直接 - immediate, direct, personal
• 就
• 下去 - go down, continue (among others)

Answer 1

I am guessing there's a typo here. "节目" is meant to be "題目" - question.

I agree that having two "直接" in a row is no good. So here's what I'll go with:

"有时不看題目就直接写下去"

Sometimes I don't read the question before writing (my answer).

This flows well with the rest of the essay, and illustrates his sloppiness when doing his homewwork.

Answer 2

The sentence sound ungrammatical and unidiomatic to me, and I'm not sure what the student means. When I was in grade school, third grade is about when students begin to learn to write prose, so mistakes are expected. Moreover, contemporary Chinese students no longer study grammar in school, so they tend to make more mistakes.

Short answer: just skip this sentence because it's wrong. Moreover, I suggest that you may want to translate school texts used to teach elementary school students instead of their own writings. Elementary students' writings contain lots of errors.

Answer 3

I do not have full context. My educated guess is this:

我也有缺点，做作业马虎，有时不直接看节目就直接写下去

I have my shortcoming too. My homework is sloppy. I just write my words without actually watch the programme.

I guess the programme is a TV programme, but I'm not sure.

下去 : The pen (or pencil or brush) move down and touch the paper.

寫下去 : pen on the paper and start writing

直接寫下去 ： write without many thought, that is "directly"

就 is a particle to connect to two phrases. The second phrase is the action following the situation in the first phrase. It is like "and then".

有時不直接看節目 就 直接寫下去