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INTRODUCTION:

Entrance examination has very importance in education system

because without entrance examination a person can not check
his/her talent and knowledge in a particular field. So all education
institute and even now a days school are taking entrance for
admissions.

HISTORY:

A banner on the HUST campus in Wuhancongratulates top exam

score achievers from the university-affiliated high school

Tertiary education entrance examinations started in the early

years when modern universities emerged in China, and continued
after the foundation of the People's Republic of
China in 1949 until the Cultural Revolution began in 1966 when
the normal pace of the education system and other sectors of life
were disrupted.

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
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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. But they were soon disillusioned by the
reality of hard conditions in the countryside.

In the early 1970s, Mao Zedong realized that internal political

struggle had taken too big a toll on him as well as the nation, and
decided to resume the operation of universities. But the students
were selected based on political and family backgrounds rather
than academic achievements. This practice continued until the
death of Mao in September, 1976. In late 1977, Deng Xiaoping,
then under Hua Guofeng, theheir apparent of Mao, officially
resumed the traditional examination based on academics, the
National Higher Education Entrance Examination, which has
continued to the present day.

The first such examination after the Cultural Revolution took

place in late 1977, and it was a history-making event. There was
no limit on the age and official educational background of
examinees, and consequently, most of the hopefuls accumulated
during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution and many others
who simply wanted to try their luck emerged from society for the
examination. The youngest were in their early teens, and the
oldest were in their late thirties. The questions in the
examinations were designed by the individualprovinces.
Eventually, only about one percent of the examinees nationwide
were admitted to universities.
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Starting from 1978, the examination was uniformly designed by

the Ministry of Education, and all the students across the country
took the exact same examination.

In recent years, however, many provinces are allowed to

customize their own examinations.

Although today's admission rate is much higher

than 1977, 1978 and before the 1990s, it is still fairly low
compared to the availability of higher education in Western
world countries. Consequently, the examination is highly
competitive, and the prospective examinees and their parents
experience enormous pressure. For the majority, it is a watershed
that divides two dramatically different lives.

PROCEDURE:

The National Higher Education Entrance Examination is not

uniform across the country, but administered uniformly within
each province of China or direct-controlled municipality. The
National Higher Education Entrance Examination is graded
variously across the country. It is arranged at the end of the
spring semester and secondary school graduates across the
country take the examination simultaneously, over a three day
period. Prior to 2003, the examination was held in July, but has
since been moved to the month of June. This move was made in
consideration of the adverse effects of hot weather on students
living in southern China and possible flooding during the rainy
season in July.
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In different places, students list their university or college

preferences prior to the exam, after the exam, or after they
learnt their scores. The preferences are given in several tiers
(including at least early admissions, key universities, regular
universities, technical colleges), each of which can contain around
4-6 choices in institution and program. In some places, students
list preferences of different tiers at different times. For example,
in Shanghai, students list their preference for early admission, key
universities and regular universities prior to the exam, but other
colleges after they learned of their scores.

The exam is administered for 3 days. Three subjects are

mandatory everywhere: Chinese, Mathematics and a foreign
language -- usually English but may also be substituted
byJapanese, Russian or French. The other 6 standard subjects are
3 sciences Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and 3
humanities History, Geography and Political Education[1].
Applicants to science/engineering or art/humanities programs
typically take 1-3 from the respective category. Since 2000s, a
integrated test, science integrated test, humanities integrated
test or wider integrated test is introduced in some places. This
integrated test may or may not be considered during admission.
Besides, some special regional subjects are required or optional in
some places. Currently, the actual requirement varies from
province to province.

Applicants to some specialist programs are also screened by

additional criteria: some art departments (e.g. audition), military
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and police schools (political screening and physical exam) and

some sports programs (tryout).

Scores obtained in the examinations can be used in applying

universities outside China. Among all the places, the counterpart
Hong Kong is on their top list. In 2007, 7 students with overall
highest score in their provinces entered Hong Kong's Universities
rather than the two major Universities in China. In 2010, over
1200 students entered the 12 local institutions which provides
teritary edcuation courses through this examination. In
addition, City University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong
Kong, and the University of Hong Kongdirectly participate the
application procedure like other mainland universities.

The examination is essentially the only criterion for tertiary

education admissions. A poor performance on the test almost
always means giving up on that goal. Students hoping to attend
university will spend most of their waking moments studying prior
to the exam. If they fail in their first attempt, some of them repeat
the last year of high school life and make another attempt the
following year. Fear of failing the exam is such an issue that
students who can afford to will sometimes go abroad to attend
university despite the greater expense - up to 15 - 30 times the
cost of an education in China.

CRITICISMS:

CORRUPTION:
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Due to the importance placed on this exam, there has been

strong pressure to keep the processes transparent and
corruption-free. The government's efforts have not been entirely
satisfactory. Leaking of exam content, bribery, and other abuses
are still being constantly exposed.

Regional discrimination:

A university usually sets a fixed admission quota for each

province, with a higher number of students coming from its home
province. As the number and quality of universities is very uneven
across China, it is argued that people are being discriminated
against during the admission process based on their geographic
region. For example, compared to Beijing,Henan province has
fewer universities per capita. Therefore an applicant in Henan
needs a significantly higher position among applicants than his
Beijing counterpart to get into the same university. This is not
similar to the practice of regional universities in other countries
which receive subsidies from regional governments in addition to
or in place of those received from national governments, as
universities in China largely depend on state budget rather than
local budget.

In recent years, varied admission standards have led some

families to relocate for the sole purpose of advancing their
children's chances of entering university.[3]

Through using a different benchmark examination and

a separated admission procedure when intaking local secondary-
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education students in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Since the National Higher Education Entrance Examinations
applicants shares the quota of the University Grants
Committee(UGC, the major tertiary education governing body in
HKSAR)'s funded degree (While about 30% (1200 students) of the
non-mainstream intakes are come from the mainland mainly
through this examination). Some local students in Hong Kong
complained that it was unfair to the local applicants since the
increasing intake from this examination increases the admission
grade of universities. In 2010, more than 5000 students who met
the minimum university entry requirement will end up not being
offered by any degree courses from UGC-member institutes even
more than 17000 students achieved it.

Special concessions:

There are special concessions for members of ethnic minorities,

foreign nationals, persons with family origin in Taiwan, and
children of military casualties. Students can also receive bonus
marks by achieving high results in academic Olympiads, other
science and technology competitions, sporting competitions, as
well as "political or moral" distinction.

Some families try to exploit these concessions, especially that for

foreign nationals. They immigrate to Vietnam, Singapore, India or
another country in order to give their children less stringent
university entrance requirements, because the minimum
requirement score for international students (students holding a
foreign passport) is considerably lower.
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Psychological pressure:

Further and more deep stemming criticisms have been leveled

that the testing system is the "most pressure packed examination
in the world." Behaviors surrounding the testing period have been
extreme under some reports, with doctors in Tianjin purportedly
prescribing birth control pills to female students whose parents
wanted to ensure the girls were not menstruating at the time of
examination. Testing pressure, for some critics, has been linked
to faintings, increased drop out rates, and even increasing rates
of teenage clinical depression and suicide.

Who will benefit ?

It is aimed at benefitting students from rural areas. As the
students from rural areas are unable to attend coaching classes
which are specifically focussed on entrance exams, it will play as
a levelling system. Also as now students will have to concentrate
only on their exams only, it will reduce the stress from both the
students and their parents.
What can be the problems ..?
The first thing that comes to mind is what will they do when there
are many students with same marks ..? How will they decide the
gradings then ..? Another problem is with CBSE students.. as the
CBSE and local board have different systems, there must be a
system that will correlate the performance of CBSE students with
local board students ..
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Earlier students used to take a year drop for preparing for

entrance exams but as now there will be no entrance exams, the
students will have get only one chance in their board exams as
there will be no grade improvement exams

So ? Will it help or make the system worse ?

As most of the problems that arise are related to grading system,
it will need immediate improvements . When the student’s
apprehension are removed, most of the people will consider the
system favorably .. I myself liked the idea .Cauz these entrance
exams make students so much stressful . Their concentration is
diverted between board exams and entrance exams. And
entrance coaching centers have grown like mushrooms who have
made this their business. When there will be no entrance exams,
the students will concentrate on their school syllabus. This is the
main point of the system. What are we encouraging? These
coaching centres teach “tricks” to solve the questions in less
time. Most of the time, they focus only on sections of syllabus that
are considered “scoring” .This results in students who knows 100
formulas but dont know the basics of the subjects .Getting rid of
entrance exams will surely help in students taking more interest
in the curriculam studies. But there should be grading
improvement exams too. When you are putting so much on one
exam, there can be chances when some unfortunate thing
happens and student not performing well in the exam. So it will
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be a lost chance for him. If there will be grading improvement

then they can try again.

I hope more States follow the lead and accept this system. It will
help reduce the stress burden from both students and their
parents. And it will give more credit to school exams too.

Test Scores and Their Relationship to Admissions

Selectivity:
There is some misunderstanding pertaining to the validity and
importance of college entrance test scores. While test scores
weigh heavily in admissions decisions, they are not the only
variable that is considered in admitting a student to even the
most selective institution of higher learning. Most colleges and
universities use the test scores as a means of assessing a
candidate for admission. Other criteria included in this
assessment are the high school grade point average (GPA), rank
in class, record of extracurricular and service activities, letters of
recommendation, applicant's essay, evidence of persistence, and
interviews, which assist the college or university in determining
the applicant's maturity, determination, personality, and
character. High school GPAs are considered a "soft" measure
because grading standards range as widely as they do in college.
Nevertheless, GPAs are considered more important than test
scores because they are inclusive of several years of
performance, not just a few hours of testing.
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The combination of high school GPAs and ACT or SAT test scores
is very useful in determining admissions because it provides
different kinds of information about the academic performance of
students. Test scores and GPAs provide reliable and efficient
information that is very useful to many admissions counselors.
Test scores were not designed, however, to be a comprehensive
approach to all factors that influence success in college.
Admissions personnel rely as much on high school GPAs or class
rank as they do on test scores, and the predictor of college
success is higher for both numbers together than for either one
alone.

The ACT and the SAT can be very helpful in assisting colleges in
admissions selectivity when there are more applicants than the
college can accept. The colleges believe that the tests are one
excellent means of helping them to make a better selection of the
candidates who apply. For instance, colleges that specialize in the
liberal arts and humanities would seek students with higher
scores in verbal aptitude and lower scores in mathematics
aptitude, whereas engineering colleges would seek students with
high scores in mathematics aptitude and lower scores in verbal
aptitude.

Over the years, college entrance tests have improved

considerably. Colleges and universities have determined that
students who do well on the tests have the ability to succeed in
college. These tests, however, are indicators only of a student's
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ability to do college work; they cannot measure perseverance and

interest in learning.

More than 9.5 million Chinese students have sat the national
college entrance examination. It is regarded as one of the most
important events for the participants, and can change their lives
in this fiercely competitive society.

The exam, which is considered the largest of its kind in the world,
is not only a fight for the candidates, but also affects their families
and the society.

The Ministry of Education says a record 10.1 million people

applied to take the exam, but only 5.67 million would be able to
enter college. Then what about those left behind? Are they
failures? Is China's national college entrance examination the only
way to success?

Definitely not! One's talent can not be judged by one exam! There
are various roads leading to success!