National College Entrance Examination
| National Higher Education Entrance Examination | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 普通高等學校招生全國統一考試 | ||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 普通高等学校招生全国统一考试 | ||||||
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| Higher education exam | |||||||
| Chinese | |||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | pǔtōng gāoděng xuéxiào zhāoshēng quánguó tǒngyī kǎoshì |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Gāokǎo |
The National Higher Education Entrance Examination (also translated as National Matriculation Examination or National College Entrance Examination or "NCEE"), commonly known as Gaokao (高考, "Higher Education Exam", Pinyin gāo kǎo, lit. "High test"), is an academic examination held annually in the People's Republic of China. This examination is a prerequisite for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the undergraduate level. It is usually taken by students in their last year of senior high school, although there has been no age restriction since 2001.
The exams last about nine hours over a period of two days, depending on the province. Chinese literature, Mathematics, and English language (in most provinces) are required for all students. In addition, students have to choose between two streams, social-science-oriented area (文科倾向) and natural-science-oriented area (理科倾向). Students who choose the former take an additional paper on history, politics and geography (文综), while those who choose the latter take an additional paper on physics, chemistry and biology (理综).
In 2006, a record high of 9.5 million people applied for tertiary education entry in China. Of these, 8.8 million (93%) took the national entrance exam and 27,600 (0.28%) were exempted (保送) due to exceptional or special talent. Everyone else (700,000 students) took other standardized entrance exams, such as those designed for adult education students.
The overall mark received by the student is generally a weighted sum of their subject marks. The maximum possible mark varies widely from year to year and also varies from province to province.
The National Higher Education Entrance Examination, commonly known as the gaokao (高考) was created in 1952.
The unified national tertiary entrance examination in 1952 marked the start of reform of National Matriculation Tests Policies (NMTP) in the newly established PRC. With the implementation of the first Five Year Plan in 1953, the NMTP was further enhanced. After repeated discussions and experiments, the NMTP was eventually set as a fundamental policy system in 1959. From 1958, the tertiary entrance examination system was affected by the Great Leap Forward Movement. Soon, unified recruitment was replaced by separate recruitment by individual or allied tertiary education institutions. Meanwhile, political censorship on candidate students was enhanced. Since 1962, criticism of the NMTP system had become even harsher, because it hurt benefits of the working class. On July 1966, the NMTP was officially canceled and substituted by a new admission policy of recommending workers, farmers and soldiers to college. During the next ten years, the Down to the Countryside Movement, initiated by Mao Zedong, forced both senior and junior secondary school graduates, the so-called "intellectual youths", to go to the country and work as farmers in the villages. Against the backdrop of world revolution, millions of such young people, some full of religious-like fervor, joined the ranks of farmers, working and living alongside them. However, they were soon disillusioned by the reality of hard conditions in the countryside.
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