Millions of Chinese students sat for notoriously tough college entrance exams yesterday, the first since the country lifted zero-COVID rules that forced classes online for months on end.
China’s education ministry says nearly 13 million students, a record, are registered to take the gaokao exams — billed by state media as the “world’s toughest” — this year.
“I’ve been waking up at 4am every day, except on Sundays, to study for the past four years,” said Jesse Rao, a 17-year-old high school senior in Shenzhen.
Photo: AFP
“I’ve done everything I can, but I still feel a bit nervous.”
In Beijing, anxious parents gathered around exam halls as their children knuckled down, many wearing red for good luck.
Zhang Jing, a mother in her forties, compared herself to Bai Suzhen, a character in Chinese folklore who is locked in a tower until her son passes an important test.
“My son is quite relaxed, I think I am more nervous than him,” said Zhang, wearing a red qipao, a traditional Chinese dress.
“I have been accompanying my son and instructing his study from the first grade of elementary school to the first year of high school,” she said.
Another mother, Fang Hong, said she had prepared a simple breakfast of bread and eggs for her son.
“My son is a bit nervous, I told him we can accept any results of the gaokao and not put any pressure on him,” she said.
‘I STRUGGLED’
Testing high school students on their Chinese, English, mathematics and other science or humanities subjects of their choice, the exams are critical to landing coveted spots at China’s top universities.
Many parents shell out hundreds of dollars a month on cram schools or hire graduate students to sit with their children while they study late into the night.
Exams are notorious for testing the ability to compose essays in response to oblique prompts, with sample questions published yesterday by the People’s Daily newspaper requiring students to contemplate the effect of technology on time management and the impact of a good story.
Another sample question asked them to muse on two aphorisms by President Xi Jinping (習近平), adding that they would be marked in part on whether they write from the “correct angle.”
Adding to the stress, this year’s exam-takers have spent the bulk of their high school years under pandemic restrictions, which ended abruptly in December.
“I struggled to follow online lessons last year,” said Katherina Wang, a high school student from Shanghai who has been through two snap lockdowns in the past two years.
“Our teachers held extra classes in the evenings and on the weekend.” The high stakes have led to elaborate attempts at cheating.
Several provinces this year have installed scanners with facial-recognition capabilities to ensure that candidates do not hire proxies to take the test on their behalf, the state-run Global Times reported.
‘I WILL TRY AGAIN’
Exams can last up to four days, depending on the province, taking between an hour and 150 minutes per subject.
The maximum score is 750, with over 600 required for a place at top-tier universities — for years a ticket to personal and professional success in China.
Very few make the cut. Last year, only three percent of exam-takers in Guangdong, China’s most populous province, scored over 600.
And for students with more modest ambitions, scores still play a critical role in securing spots in universities and what subjects can be taken.
For those that do not get the results they need, there is always next year. In 2021, 17 percent of students nationwide retook their gaokao.
“If I don’t get the results I want, I will try again,” said Benjamin Zhu, a high school senior from Guangzhou.
The arithmetic is straightforward and uncomfortable. By the end of 2025, Taiwan had committed itself to a 50-30-20 electricity mix — half natural gas, 30 per cent coal, 20 per cent renewables. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’s (MOEA) own monthly energy reports tell a different story. Natural gas reached 47.8 per cent of generation last year. Coal stood at 35.4 per cent, comfortably above its target ceiling. Renewables came in at 13.1 per cent, well short of the 20 per cent Taipei had pledged a decade earlier. Installed renewable capacity reached roughly half of the 12 gigawatts (GW) the government
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
Taiwan’s drone exports are taking off, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, as Taiwanese companies seek a stake in the fast-growing global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Low-cost drones used for reconnaissance and strikes are in high demand as governments around the world boost defense spending in the face of intensifying conflicts. A relative new player in the increasingly competitive industry, Taiwan’s pitch is to be an “Asian hub” for the production of UAVs and components free of Chinese materials, or “non-red.” That means its UAVs can be up to three times more expensive than their Chinese competitors, like the world’s biggest
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
RSS