For the past year, Liu Qichao has focused on one thing, and only one thing: the gao kao, or the high test. Fourteen to 16 hours a day, he studied for the college entrance examination, which this year will determine the fate of more than 10 million Chinese students. He took one day off every three weeks. He was still carrying his textbook from room to room last Sunday morning before leaving for the exam venue, still reviewing materials during the lunch break, still hard at work Sunday night, preparing for Part 2 of the exam that Monday.

“I want to study until the last minute,” he said.

China may be changing at head-twirling speed, but the ritual of the gao kao remains as immutable as chopsticks. One Chinese saying compares the exam to a stampede of “a thousand soldiers and 10 horses across a single log bridge”.

The Chinese test is in some ways like the American SAT, except that it lasts more than twice as long. The nine-hour test is offered just once a year and is the sole determinant for admission to virtually all Chinese colleges and universities.

Families pull out all the stops to optimise their children’s scores. In Sichuan Province, students studied in a hospital, hooked up to oxygen containers, in hopes of improving their concentration. Some girls take contraceptives so they won’t get their periods during the exam. Some well-off parents dangle the promise of fabulous rewards for offspring whose scores get them into a top-ranked university: parties, 100,000 renminbi in cash, or about $14,600, or better.

... contd.