高考将至 高三学子准备就绪

This Friday, students across China will be sitting down to take one of the most important tests of their lives, the Gaokao or college entrance exams, and with 9.3 million students sitting the exam last year, competition for places at China's elite universities is fierce.

At a Beijing middle school, students are pulling out all the stops in the final run-up to the exams. Cici, a student hoping to get into China Communications University is no exception.

"I get up at about 6am each day, have breakfast. then we have class from 7.40 right through to 12.30 when we get a break. After that classes start again at 1.40 and go on to 6. Then we have dinner and at 7pm we have self-study time until 9.30 and again from 10 to 11pm. I get to sleep at about 11.30. I guess I am spending about 12-13 hours a day studying at the moment."

 
Cici says that she chose a university that she feels confident she will get into, however some of her classmates who have chosen to enter more competitive universities are feeling the pressure.

"To some of my fellow students, it's really important what mark they get, and for them in order to get into the university they want, they really will give a huge amount of effort."
 
Kimi is one such student, she is aiming to get into Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University to study medicine.

"The grade requirement of this university is pretty high so at the moment I'm not feeling so confident, I guess I've got to study even harder."
 
"Three groups of people get involved in helping the students in dealing with this kind of pressure, the first is the students, the second is the parents and of course as teachers we will try our best to cheer them up and get well prepared for the final examination."
 
Mrs. Zhu is a third year English teacher, while her assistance to students extends to classroom guidance, outside of class, some parents will go to great lengths to make sure their children sit the gaokao in the best possible environment.

"From the beginning of the third grade my family rented out a place nearby, the rent is really expensive, so financially, the support my parents have given me is pretty big. Also even though my mum is really busy with work, every day when she gets home she'll specially make me some simple types of food which help boost study."

While it may sound grueling, in some ways Mrs. Zhu's students can be considered to be amongst the lucky ones. Across China's provinces, disparities in the standard of pre- and post university education means that for some the chances of getting into the university of their choice are significantly lower. While disparities have been decreasing in recent years, last year's enrollment rates show that while nearly 90 percent of Shanghai students managed to get a place at a university, in the relatively poor Gansu province in northwest China, that number was just 68 percent.

Mrs. Zhu explains that because local provinces give preference to local students, those in areas where the population is high but good universities are scarce tend to lose out.

"The portions are different, so Beijing may be given more numbers to local, for example in Beijing maybe Peking University can enrol maybe 80, but in Shandong province maybe 20 or 30."

In some parts of China the pressure to do well in exams has led to students taking extreme measures to increase performance, last month photos emerged of row upon row of students at a Hubei high school revising while hooked up to IV drips to help them increase concentration.
 
While the gaokao system has come under criticism in recent years it seems that many students and teachers alike feel they have no choice but to accept the status quo.

"Maybe they will consider gaokao is a nightmare for most of the Chinese teenagers, or graduates from senior high. But I want to say that it's a thing that everybody has to experience so the key is not whether you should avoid it, or give it up, but try to face it."

"From the beginning of the third year we've just been studying what we learned in the first two years of senior school. Even though sometimes you feel it's totally dull and boring, because there's nothing fresh to study, Taking the gaokao is about giving yourself a better future. I feel that every day's hard work is worth it. Actually I feel like Gaokao is more like a test of your willpower than a test of knowledge. Only those with the strongest willpower can get into their ideal universities."
 
For CRI, this is Natalie Thomas.