The 2023 college entrance examination kicked off on June 7th. The candidates in the exam room are answering for their youth, while the people outside the exam room are escorting their dreams. The annual impartial exam reflects government credibility, justifies senior high schools’ fame, and above all, sees joy or sorrow of countless households.
Gaokao: Chinese SAT
The National College Entrance Examination, aka the “Gaokao”，is an examination that is taken by Chinese students in their third and final year of high school typically from June 7 to June 8 or 9, a high-stakes exam on which students’ entire future depends. One Chinese saying aptly compares the exam to a stampede of “thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses across a single log bridge.”
Though varying from province to province, the gaokao generally includes tests of Chinese literature, mathematics and a foreign language (in most cases English). If students choose liberal arts as specialty in high school, they need to take additional tests related to history, politics and geography. If they choose science, they’ll take physics, chemistry and biology tests.
After the exam is over, students are asked to list the colleges and universities they prefer in several tiers. Ultimately, whether they are accepted or rejected will be determined based on their gaokao score. Because of this, students who fail the test and thus cannot attend college will sometimes spend another year studying and retake the test the following year.
A battle involving parents and students
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.
Some parents quit their jobs to accompany their children, while full-time gaokao nannies 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…
Because the gaokao is so important, Chinese society goes to great lengths to make life easy for test-takers on testing days. Areas around testing sites are often marked as quiet zones. Nearby construction and even traffic are sometimes halted while students are taking the test to prevent distractions. Police officers, taxi drivers, and other car owners will often ferry students they see walking the streets to their exam locations for free, to ensure that they are not late for this all-important occasion.
Views and tendency
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.
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.
Despite all the stress and importance surrounding the gaokao, the number of students taking the exam has dropped in recent years. The decline is partially due to population decrease, but also because more options for higher education are available to Chinese students than ever before.
（Picture source: xinhua）
