Gaokao: Fair or Unfair

Essay on Upfront Issued 3/20/15

In most schools around the world, students are required to take tests, whether it be for a subject in school or for admissions to a different school. In China, millions of students are required to take an exam, called the gaokao, which determines whether or not a high school student can advance to college. The article, “China’s Cram Schools,” found in The New York Times Upfront Magazine issued on March 30, 2015, and written by Brook Larmer, refers to this exam as the “do-or-die” college exam, and I completely agree with this quote. A large portion of their future depends on this exam, and this puts an immense amount of pressure on teenagers in China. By looking at what Larmer has to say in his article “China’s Cram Schools,” I believe it to be unfair that one exam can determine the future of a Chinese high-schooler.

Firstly, the amount of pressure put on the kids is horrific, and teenage suicide rates rise as the gaokao nears. The fact that an exam can cause teenagers to kill themselves is sickening, and it shows how the gaokao really affects ones mental health in a negative way. Additionally, the stress that the gaokao exam makes teenagers feel causes them to go to extreme measures in order to study. In “China’s Cram Schools,” Larmer discusses about a picture that was posted online two years ago. In it is a classroom full of Chinese teenagers who are hooked up to intravenous drips in order to give themselves the strength to keep studying. Not only is this fact shocking, it’s detrimental. Studying for a test should not be the reason teens are using intravenous drips to keep themselves stable. The burden placed amongst Chinese teenagers is insane, and because of this, students may not perform as well on the test as they could’ve. Taking this test doesn’t even accurately measure who the teenager is as a student, learner, and person because of all the pressure that is clouding their mind.

Furthermore, every teenager in China has different living situations, so students are either at advantages or disadvantages. Teens living in rural areas have a serious dilemma. These villages lack well trained teachers and exceptional schools, while the upper class families are guaranteed to have private tutors, take test-prep courses, or send their children abroad to private international schools in China. Plus, college-admissions spots are usually granted to upper class families rather than rural students. The fact that other teens have a gigantic advantage over others is unfair, and this illustrates how one test is as unjust way of determining a students future. Instead, Chinese universities should know how each teen learns and acts before admitting them, instead of just throwing a test on them. 

Taking the gaokao exam of admissions is very unfair for Chinese students who want to get into a university and have a stable job. The amount of pressure put on these teens is absurd, and mental health levels dramatically drop as a result of the abhorrent amount of stress these poor students feel because of one exam. Also, the exam does not accurately measure who is cut for what school. People have different living conditions, therefore some teens are able to afford the best private tutors, while others are stuck in crummy schools with uneducated teachers. By looking at these dreadful aspects of the gaokao, it seems as if China may be setting up their students for failure, that’s what it sure seems like! Students will feel so concerned to do well during the exam, or all their years of cramming in the material for this test will go to waste, and so will all the money spent on tutors and extra schooling. So, the families as a whole are not only being robbed of their money and time, but their kid will not go to a university and will have an unacceptable job for the majority of their life. To conclude, it is extremely unfair that so much is riding on a single test for the students in China.