China's Gaokao
When does gaokao start and what is gaokao?
Each year in the beginning of June, millions of students take the?gaokao, China’s National College Entrance Examination. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the?gaokao?back one month. This week, more than 10 million will take the exam across China.
The lone criterion for admission into Chinese universities, the?gaokao?is a high-stakes exam on which students' entire future depends.
Scored on a scale of 750 points with questions varying from province to province, the?gaokao?generally includes tests of Chinese literature, mathematics and a foreign language (in most cases English).
Lasting 10 hours over two or three days of grueling multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank and essay questions, the exam is something students spend 12 years studying for in hopes of getting admission to their university of choice.
Before or after students take the?gaokao,?they need to fill in a form listing the colleges they want to get into (the timing of which varies by region). Every college will have a lowest intake score which varies by province, and if students meet that requirement, they can be admitted. Otherwise, they will be rejected and passed on to another nominated school to see if the score meets their requirements.?
If a student does not meet any school requirements, he or she completely loses the chance of getting into college for the upcoming academic year. But as the gaokao has no official age limit, students often redo the entire final year gaokao preparations to take the test again... and again, and again. One grandpa farmer went viral in 2014 for?taking his 14th?gaokao. Another brave 49-year-old man in Sichuan made headlines last year after?announcing that he was on his 20th attempt at taking the exam?in order get into his dream school.
How do Chinese students and parents prepare for the?gaokao?
As you can imagine, the preparation for such a high-stakes make-or-break exam is a long and grueling process. The final year of high school is often devoted to preparations where students do practice exams almost every day while books and exam papers can be seen piled up on their desks.?
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Parents are also known to not sit idle while their children are up to their ears in "exam paper seas." Some parents quit their jobs to accompany their children, while full-time gaokao nannies and hired exam-takers are also not uncommon. Some desperate parents even resort to burning incense and praying to Buddha to wish their children good scores.
When the big day comes…
From priority access to noise control, the whole country tiptoes around during the exams. To ensure students get to their exams in on time, many different measures are taken by authorities. For example, transportation officials in Shanghai have allowed test takers to get priority access to all metro stations, and students holding admission cards can be waved through metro stations, free of charge. Volunteers and police are also deployed to help give directions, with more than 1,700 taxi drivers offering free rides to exam-takers in Beijing in 2014. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak in Guangzhou, 1,200 taxi drivers are volunteering to help students make the test on time.
While often criticized for prompting a culture of cramming, the gaokao is also regarded as the fairest way of screening talent in a country with such a large population. For students coming from rural places, the gaokao can be their ticket to big cities and more promising futures.?
For all its importance, one thing that should be noted is that the gaokao weighs more in less developed areas, as students in first-tier cities like Shanghai are more likely to choose to study overseas. Also, the intake scores in those cities are relatively lower than those in less developed regions.?
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