China’s College Entry Test, Gao Kao, Is National Obsession

The article's comparison to the SAT is misleading. Whereas the SAT is a reasoning test, the Gao Kao is a series of subject tests (think SAT Subject Tests or AP exams). The three mandatory subjects are Mathematics, Chinese, and a foreign language. In addition, students select one to three additional exams, and this choice depends on what they hope to study in college. Prospective science/engineering students will choose from Biology, Chemistry, and Physics; prospective arts/humanities students will choose from History, Geography, and Political Education.

This also reminds me of a quote from <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582698" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582698</a> that has been on my mind:<p><i>More serious for China's long-term prospects is that the expansion was so fast, and the pressures to pay off the debts so intense, that many of the schools turned into diploma mills, churning out poorly qualified students. Mr. Zhang got his degree from a school of traditional Chinese medicine with no history of teaching computer sciences. He looks back ruefully, recalling overcrowded classrooms and a lack of materials: "I wonder if this education was of any value?"</i><p>It sounds like there is a huge opportunity here. If open-sourced course materials (such as MIT's OCW) could be combined with a degree-granting mechanism that had credibility with employers, then ad hoc schools, study groups, online communities, and even lone inviduals could succeed where these hastily retooled "universities" seem to have failed.

I think this is just unnatural. Seriously. I mean, working hard and studying hard is really great, but there must be a balance. Having rest once a fortnight and having 9-hours exams is clearly off-balance. There's a limited amount of information the nervous system can take in in a given amount of time. Studying twice as much doesn't mean learning twice as much - having spent five years in higher education I can tell that having rest and being calm helps waaay much more than, say for instance, studying on Sundays.<p>As for the Chinese society, I'm not sure if that helps them either. Sure they might raise professionals with a large lexical knowledge (assuming that they don't forget everything the moment they put the pens down at the end of the exam) but it seems to me that these millions of kids will grow up becoming real stresspots with all the divorce stuff and heart attack in their late forties. Is this really how Chinese people imagine their next generation of working population?

I was in china a week or so ago and stories about the Gao Kao filled the papers/media and there were prominent stories about cheaters who were caught and the rest. That it was the the anniversary of the Tienanmen square thing, with no coverage at all on state media, was interesting to me.

I've been a keen defender of the Chinese education system (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482513" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482513</a>) and once again I applause this arrangement; I do not, however, applaud the NYT for publishing this piece - great as it is - in the news section.

<i>Ms. Li’s breakfast was a favorite among test-takers: a bread stick next to two eggs, symbolizing a 100 percent score.</i><p>Education fail much? Of all the things to optimize your breakfast for...

A huge number of people chasing after so few opportunities as their ultimate dream -- Wait, you are not talking about Silicon Valley?