China’s Big Problem That Xi Jinping Can’t Solve
The two-day testing ordeal for a spot at a university is drawing more students but creating a pool of overqualified unemployed graduates
Parents in Zhengzhou awaiting their children to complete the “gaokao.”
Photographer: Future Publishing/Future PublishingThe most significant event in China this week was the gaokao — the annual two-day national exam to qualify for college. Anxious parents wait while their children go through the nine-hour ordeal. Those with younger kids sift through the test questions — published once the exams are over — preparing their offspring for the inevitable. As for couples considering starting a family, just imagining the gaokao for theirs can be a pretty effective contraceptive.
The exam questions are almost designed to fail you. For instance, the closed-book essays in the Chinese language test demand a near-encyclopedic knowledge of history, classic literature and even current events. This year, one question was on the naming of a pavilion in the classic 18th century novel “Dream of the Red Chamber”; another queried strategies for the game of Go; a third requested an 800-word critique of a mini-documentary produced by the state-owned CCTV for the 100th birthday of the Communist Youth League.