The Test That Determines Your Future
What if I told you that your entire life—your job, your marriage, even your friends—came down to how high you scored on a single test?
For many in China, the Gaokao, or college entrance exam, is exactly that: a single academic event that could determine the course of their lives. In the quest to secure top scores, many Chinese students take extreme measures. Some turn to IV drips meant to help them concentrate while studying. Teenage girls have been known to take contraceptives to delay their periods until after the test. Others study from dusk until dawn, maximizing their study time by timing their meals and sleep to precise—and often unsustainable—levels.
That's why social media is full of stories of students who pushed things too far and fell victim to anxiety, depression, and burnout brought on by the relentless pursuit of a near-perfect score.
The Gaokao is typically held in June each year. Students must spend about 10 hours taking the exam. The test covers mathematics, Chinese language, and a foreign language. Three other subjects are also tested based on a student's education and career goals. These additional subjects are selected from physics, biology, chemistry, politics, history, and geography.
The Gaokao is notoriously difficult. Maintaining top scores throughout high school is not enough to completely prepare for the exams.
Jang, a private tutor who has been teaching high school math for more than a decade, says some math problems are too difficult for the vast majority of high school students. For example, take this question from the 2024 Gaokao—the answer would require a level of math knowledge far beyond what high school students typically learn.
Experts say the high difficulty level serves an important purpose:
If you are going to have only 1% of people get into the top university, then you have to have a test that is hard enough that no more than 1% of the people can get all the questions right. Because if 2% of the people got 100% of the questions right, then it wouldn't do it.
Extreme Measures and Ruthless Competition
In mainland China, the Gaokao is the only thing determining whether a student can get into university.
College entrance exams around the world can be roughly divided into two categories based on their functions: assessment exams and selective exams.
Assessment exams, such as the SATs in the US, are technical tests that reflect a student’s overall academic knowledge. Selective exams, including China’s Gaokao and South Korea’s Suneung, are designed to provide scores used to directly select students.
So unlike in the US, where college admissions officers include SAT results as part of a larger picture of a student’s academic performance, in China, the Gaokao is all that is considered. Test takers are ranked within each province, with top scores representing the best of the nation.
Experts say this makes the Gaokao harder than many college entrance exams in other countries. And for most students, the test is only getting harder.
It’s not just the questions that make the Gaokao tough—it’s also the competition. More than 10 million students have registered for the Gaokao every year since 2019, and the number grows annually.
In 2024, of the 13.4 million students who took the test, only 40% scored high enough to get a place in university.
Of the 2,820 higher education institutions in China, 115 have been designated as part of Project 211, a program aimed at fostering excellence in education. Getting into one of these universities is considered the best path to a brighter future.
But the national average acceptance rate at Project 211 schools is only around 5%. That means in 2024, each of the top 115 universities admitted on average 5,800 students out of a pool of 13.4 million.
As one expert put it:
Because there's such a huge number of people taking this test, it doesn't matter what the questions are. It's just a matter of the ratio of the number of places to the total number of participants. So the real key is the ratio, not what questions are asked.
The Toll on Mental Health and the Path Forward
This brutal competitiveness has created a system of high schools so strict that they are known as “Gaokao factories.”
Among the most famous Gaokao factories is Hengshui High School in northern Hebei province. It’s a boarding school that uses military-style management techniques. Students are monitored by CCTV cameras in every classroom. Teachers punish students for bad behavior—including taking a drink, lifting their heads from their books, or talking to classmates.
“Hengshui Mode,” as it's known, has been criticized in China for being too extreme. Yet, its focus on gruelingly long study hours has proven to be effective.
A 2022 study by Peking University found that Chinese high school students spend an average of 60 hours a week studying. Many parents even send their children to tutoring centers.
For instance, Chen Yangzi stopped attending her registered high school six months before the Gaokao. Instead, she went to a full-time tutor school with a more tailored study schedule. Her day starts at 6:30 AM and ends at 10:00 PM—that’s 15.5 hours of schoolwork, six days a week.
It’s no surprise that for many students, this pressure causes mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
A report by Shenzhen’s Bureau of Education found that more than half of the students who had committed suicide in the city did so while under extreme study pressure.
This pressure starts early—as early as middle school—because getting into a good high school is essential for a successful Gaokao performance.
The Gaokao is an extremely high-stakes undertaking. All of these pressures contribute to immense psychological strain. Students experience stomach aches, nausea, loss of appetite, insomnia, panic attacks, and sleep deprivation.
Recognizing the problem, the government has introduced policies to reduce the burden. In 2021, Beijing cracked down on the $70 billion USD tutoring industry. China’s Ministry of Education found many schools violating rules by holding classes on public holidays. In 2025, some provinces even ordered schools to give weekends back to students.
Still, experts in education say that little is likely to change:
The root cause of this enormous anxiety and stress confronting Chinese families is still in place. It has not been removed at all.
Families continue to seek alternative methods to give their children a competitive edge in high-stakes exams like the Gaokao.
Although the Gaokao has undergone multiple revisions, including question types and subjects, experts say the competition will remain fierce until the nature of the system itself changes.
In 2025, the number of students expected to sit the Gaokao is around 13 million. Meanwhile, China's gloomy job market means that even attending a top university no longer guarantees access to the best jobs.
For now, the only certainty is that each year, the bells signaling the start of the Gaokao across the country will continue to ring.
Source: South China Morning Post. (2025, June 1). Why is China’s gruelling gaokao college entrance exam so tough? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nOhwr_y7oU