A woman in Beijing, surnamed Liu, drove her daughter to Beijing Chen Jinglun High School at 7:30 a.m. on June 7 to take part in the college entrance exam, known in China as the gaokao. "We left home early in case of unforeseen cricumstances," Liu said.

A record 11.93 million students signed up to take this year's gaokao, an increase of 1.15 million from last year. Except for Shanghai, where the exam has been postponed until July 7 due to the pandemic, the exam took place nationwide from June 7 to 10.

In response to the recent resurgences of COVID-19, local governments took a slew of extra measures to ensure the exam ran smoothly.

Thoughtful arrangement 

Tailored measures were adopted to minimize the risk of infection among examinees. Twelve examinees who tested positive for COVID-19 took the exam at specially constructed hospitals in Beijing and in Liaoning and Sichuan provinces, while 120 students took the exam at centralized quarantine facilities. Over 700 students sat the exam in other specially arranged exam rooms away from their peers, owing to positive cases or close contacts being identified in their residential communities.

Eighty of these students, from Beijing's Chaoyang District, took the exam at a special exam room inside a local hotel, and were required to arrive at the hotel by the evening before the exam.

Li Qing, head of Xiaohongmen Police Station in Chaoyang District, said his station had dispatched officers to the hotel to maintain order, including directing traffic.

The exam took place in the hotel's meeting room, with multiple students taking the exam in the same room. The exam room was arranged to meet the standard of a gaokao exam room, with a blackboard, desks and chairs transported from a local high school. "To make the examinees feel at ease, we arranged the exam room to be like a high school classroom with which they are familiar," said Sun Hao, Vice President of the Chuiyangliu Branch of Beijing Huiwen Middle School, who was in charge of the exam site.

Sun and his team organized for students from high-risk areas to each sit the exam in separate hotel rooms, located directly opposite the hotel rooms in which they slept.

Students from high-risk areas of neighboring Haidian District took the exam at a well-equipped hotel. Organizers ensured the best rooms were given to the students as exam rooms and for accommodation, and students were given the opportunity to order their favorite meals one day in advance.

New trends 

As in previous years, the essay questions of the Chinese language exam garnered widespread attention and made national headlines. There were seven versions of Chinese-language papers—four national papers produced by the National Education Examinations Authority and three local papers produced by educational authorities of Beijing, Tianjin and Zhejiang Province.

This year's essay questions covered state affairs, the understanding of life, culture and classical Chinese literature.

Gaokao essay questions have focused on state affairs many times in the past. This year, the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) were included in the essay questions.

Some essay questions required students to write about their understanding of life based on their personal experiences. For instance, one national paper asked students to comment on basic, smart and lousy moves to make when playing weiqi, a boardgame also known as go.

Experts who designed the question told Xinhua News Agency that the essay question aimed to inspire teachers and students to write creatively instead of simply memorizing knowledge.

"The 100th anniversary of the founding of the CYLC is hot news this year. Making it a topic of an essay question this year is to guide high school students to pay more attention to current affairs," Zhao Zhiyan, a senior Chinese language teacher from Liaoning Province, told Xinhua. "The essay question emphasized young people's obligations and responsibilities, patriotism and the spirit of working hard, which are all focuses of Chinese language education and school education at large," Zhao said.

"This year's essay questions are more difficult than those of previous years and have placed higher requirements on students' ability to interpret the questions and their critical thinking abilities," Zeng Yiming, a Chinese language teacher from the Affiliated High School of South China Normal University.

The emphasis on tradition and the classics was also reflected in the exam questions. One essay question took an excerpt from the classic novel A Dream of Red Mansions, written by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Zeng said those who have better knowledge of the classics would have a better understanding of the question and would have done better in the exam.

Education reform 

This year's gaokao is the first since the double reduction policy—reducing the burden on students from homework and extracurricular tutoring—became effective last July. Experts say this year's gaokao essay questions are in line with the double reduction policy, which aims to improve students' overall abilities rather than just their skills at memorization.

For a long time, China's education system has been criticized for its overemphasis on scores and having one exam—the gaokao—determine which university a student can attend and, to some extent, their future. The system has resulted in heavy academic burdens on students and hindered the development of their overall abilities. In the past, there have been constant calls for reforming the exam and university admission system. In 2014, the State Council issued guidelines on deepening the reform of the system with the aim of reducing the burden on students and promoting their well-rounded development, marking the start of a new round of education reforms.

As part of the new reforms, a new gaokao system was introduced. Under the new system, known as the 3+1+2 system, exams for the three major subjects, Chinese, math and one of six foreign languages are all compulsory, and in addition, students can select another three subjects to be assessed in. In some provincial-level regions, students can choose one from physics and history, and another two from chemistry, biology, political studies and geography. 

In some other provincial-level regions, a 3+3 model was introduced, whereby besides sitting the exams for the three major subjects, students could choose three subjects from physics, chemistry, biology, political studies, history and geography to be assessed in.

Under the 3+1+2 model, there are 12 possible combinations of exam subjects, an improvement on the previous system, under which students had fewer choices. Previously, students majoring in science and engineering were required to take the chemistry, physics and biology exams in addition to the three major subjects, and students majoring in the arts were required to take the history, political studies and geography exams.

As of November last year, 21 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had launched the reforms.

Wang Weiguo, head of No.1 High School in Tangshan, Hebei Province where the 3+1+2 model is now in its second year, said the new system enables students to follow more diverse development paths in light of their interests and strengths. "Students should be clearer about their future career development because, when choosing their exam subjects, they need to have in mind the university majors they might select," Wang told Hebei Daily.

(Print Edition Title: Put to the Test) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson  

Comments to jijing@cicgamericas.com