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Battling Gaokao

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-06-08 14:09
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Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
9.33 million
 

About 9.33 million students have registered to go to testing sites throughout the country on June 7 and June 8, this year and take the national exams they must pass to gain entrance to college. That is 240,000 fewer than were registered for the exams last year. The number has fallen three years in a row since 2008, when 10.5 million people were registered for the exams. [Full story] [Lower enrollment ]

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>

China Daily website initiated an online discussion to share the memory of gaokao, the national university entrance examination, with the assistance of t.qq.com, a micro blog service provided by China’s leading Web portal www.qq.com.

The discussion starts with the sentence, "I was so nervous on gaokao because..." and it allows readers to tell their stories.
 Snapshots
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
Students are seen in a testing room in the first day of the national college entrance examination in the Guiyang No 9 middle school in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province June 7. [Photo/Xinhua]
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
Students put their hands together as a sign to encourage each other before the national college entrance examination in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality June 7. [Photo/Xinhua]
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
A student, deep in thought, catches up on some last-minute revision before the exam at a Beijing middle school on June 7, 2011. [Photo/China Daily]
 
 
 Newsmakers

15th time

Injured student 

Anxious parents  

"I only want to realize a dream," Liang Shi, a 44-year-old native of Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, told China Daily on Monday. "It's as if I wanted to drink, but the water hasn't boiled even though I've added a lot of firewood. I believe now it will finally boil." [Full story]

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>

 

 

 

Ming Yafeng, an injured student in Zhuxi of Central China's Hubei province, takes his Chinese exam on June 7, 2011.

A severe road accident left Ming in a 21-hour coma just three days before the National College Entrance Examination.

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>

While the 9.3 million students are fighting for university seats in the cutthroat national college entrance examinations, their parents are undergoing a test of a different sort. [Full story]

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>

Please click
here to see more' photos.  Related: Parents deliver meals

Efforts 
Cities consider giving college aspirants break
To allow the students to go about their task in peace, construction sites across the country have been ordered to suspend work at night and at noon on the two days of the exam. The government, at the same time, has lifted rules restricting the number of private cars that can be on the road in Beijing, a place notorious for its heavy traffic. The change will allow parents to get their children to testing sites in the city quickly. [Full story]
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
Free luxury limos for gaokao examinees
Students take a luxurious over-sized Hummer for free to Pengzhou Vocational Middle School in Chengdu city,  Sichuan province, to attend the national college entrance examination or gaokao on June 7, 2011. [Photo/CFP]
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
Injured student gets a helping hand
Qiao Lu, an exam taker who broke her leg in May, gets off a taxi at an exam site in Beijing Dongzhimen High School on Tuesday. She is being helped by the driver of the cab she arrived in and a policeman. [Photo/China Daily]
 
Exam biz


In Shanghai, many hotels are renting out special rooms to students who are sitting the exam this year.

In Changchun, capital city of Northeast China's Jilin province, hotels near testing sites have been booked up for months in advance of the exam dates. A strong demand has driven the room rates upward; many rooms now cost four to five times as much as they usually do, according to the reports.

Elsewhere, certain service centers have started "exam nanny" businesses. These enlist retired teachers, who offer tutoring and domestic services to students. Their goal is to make it easier for parents who are busy with work to help their children in their studies. [
To read more]

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
A worker at the Beijing Peixin Hotel cleans a room set aside for takers of the college entrance exam. The paper on the bed reads: Best wishes for the success in the exam. [Photo/Xinhua]
Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
A staff with Hanting Inns puts up a poster which reads " Gaokao napping room: 28 RMB for 2 hours.

 
New choice? Students at reform university refuse to take test
Students at the South University of Science and Technology of China are refusing to take the national college entrance examination.the 45 students at the reform-based school wrote an open letter on the Internet saying the exam was "inappropriate" for them.

"It was a major boost for me when I heard the students wrote an open letter challenging the entrance exam," said Zhu Qingshi, president of the unique university. "The students made me feel hopeful about the country's education reform, and they are even more brave than some adults, officials and teachers," Beijing Times quoted Zhu as saying on Monday. [Full story]
 
Views
Decision that changed the course of my life

Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>

I was one of the first few that appeared for the gaokao, or the college entrance exam, in 1977, when it was resumed after the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).

I was 30 then. Nine years of hard labor in rural environs till then had made me, a Beijing native, give up hope of ever returning to a campus, let alone think of being one of the veterans of China Daily. [Full story]
 In big cities across the country, an increasing number of about-to-graduate high school students are heading abroad as a back-up for possible failure in the national college entrance exam, which has often been dubbed as "millions of troops killing for a chance to cross a thin log over a river". In schools across the country, the three-year preparation for the exam usually means round-the-clock studies, endless tests, and mental pressure for students, parents and teachers, says Yin Hang, a Beijinger. "I got tired of all that and I told my parents I want to study happily and peacefully."

The mistrust of the current education system is also mirrored in the fact that China had the largest number of overseas students in the world last year, around 1.27 million according to data from the Ministry of Education.
 Battling <EM>Gaokao</EM>
The first batch of university students after the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976) at a classroom in March 1978. [Photo/Xinhua]