The Dragon Boat Festival is happening this weekend in China, so Monday's been declared a national holiday. Most graduating high school students aren't going to have such a good time though. The gaokao, the college entrance exam, is being held from Saturday to Monday. The gaokao is kinda like the SAT, but as Slate explains, it covers pretty much everything you've ever learned in school and determines what university you can go to. I don't get the impression that you can make up for a lousy score with a couple more extra-curriculars.
All that pressure pushed 3000 to cheat last year, when the essay questions looked like this. It's expected that this year, of the 10.5 million that write the test, only 6 million will qualify for a university.
I've read that students in the areas most affected by the earthquake have been exempted from writing this year, but then that same article goes on to say that others are writing the exams in makeshift houses while living in tents. And what's an exemption anyways? The exams are only held once a year, so if you're exempt you'll still have to wait a year, right? One tangible thing they have done is to up the number of Sichuanese students that get placed by 2%.
What's amazing is the "we'll just have to work harder" attitude that some students are taking. Reminds me of a scene from the (Canadian) documentary Up the Yangtze, in which a 14-year old girl throws a fierce tantrum because her parents can't afford to send her to high school. (Fascinating movie, by the way. Two thumbs up from the Mao Mix.) People here are hungry for education here in a way that's just unheard of in North America.
China: where if you're one in a million, you still gotta beat out 1,299 others to come out on top.
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