Xu Ruo was delighted when she received the admission letter from Wuhan University in April. Obviously, her hard work preparing for the postgrad entrance exam had paid off. Now, she's even happier. The notes she made while preparing for the exam earned her some pocket money over the summer vacation.

More than 30 people phoned her to ask for copies of the notes or even tutoring in person. What's the secret? Xu and her roommate, who also got into postgrad school at another university, had put up a notice on campus at Zhengzhou University last month announcing that they would use their experience to help others.

Xu's notice announced that they had "found some approaches that might improve efficiency in preparing for the exams. You can't get this experience at classroom."

A photocopy of her notebooks is 50 yuan (US$6), while tutoring runs 20 yuan (US$2.4) per day.

There are plenty of people desperately competing for postgrad programmes, but exam tutorials don't offer much guidance, so notebooks and real experience are becoming more important. Zhang Yafang, who is in postgrad studies at Zhejiang University, says that more than half of her 30 classmates who sat last year's postgrad entrance exams sold their lecture notes for about 30 yuan (US$3.6) per subject.

Tang Liyun, at Beijing Normal University, was one of those who went shopping. She explains: "I spent nearly 500 yuan (US$60) on books and lectures, last year, that turned out to be worthless and even misleading. But, advice from older postgrads did help."

But, Zhang Fang, who studied at Zhengzhou University, has no particular complaints about the tutorial.

Zhang wants to go to Xu's postgrad school, so she went shopping for Xu's notes, because: "Each postgrad school has its specific requirements. I hope to get some hints about the exam."

Li Ke'an, head of the Dean's Office at Peking University, adds a cautionary note about these notes. "Exam emphasis and patterns may change every year. Students should check out the new exam requirements and coverage and try to get advice from professors who will be the tutor in future."

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