From praying parents accidently burning down trees, to forking out a 100,000 yuan to prepare for the career-defining exam, the most important time in a Chinese student's schooling is eventful, to say the least.
We've brought together everything you need to know about what students achieve by sitting the test, how it is continually changing and what gaokao has in store for students and their families, this year.
Few people question the importance of the Gaokao, but it has flaws, such as an over-emphasis on academic performance.
Several changes about Gaokao are in the pipe. Those include spreading out assessments over multiple tests, giving students second-chance exams, making the exams uniform across all regions and significantly cutting bonus points.
This year's exam will also be the first in which cheating is a criminal act
How many students take the first spots, also known as zhuangyuan, in gaokao? And what do they do after?
Thankfully, an annual report has answered those questions by tracking down top-scorers over the past decades.
It seems Peking University is the college-of-choice among the most gifted students – 835, to be exact – while economics is the most popular subject.
A total of 835 top-scorers at the provincial-level in the country's national college entrance examination, or gaokao, became Peking University students between 1977 and 2015, a recently published report by a consultancy company showed.
The report, by consultancy company cuaa.net, looks at top-scorers from across the country in the past few decades, before this year's gaokaois sat between June 7 and 9.
Tsinghua University, another top university, followed Peking University to receive 668 top scorers. Fudan University enrolled 55 to rank third, while the University of Science and Technology of China received 54.
The economics major has been the most popular among top scorers, attracting 343 students, followed by business administration and electronic information engineering.
We've brought together everything you need to know about what students achieve by sitting the test, how it is continually changing and what gaokao has in store for students and their families, this year.
Few people question the importance of the Gaokao, but it has flaws, such as an over-emphasis on academic performance.
Several changes about Gaokao are in the pipe. Those include spreading out assessments over multiple tests, giving students second-chance exams, making the exams uniform across all regions and significantly cutting bonus points.
This year's exam will also be the first in which cheating is a criminal act
How many students take the first spots, also known as zhuangyuan, in gaokao? And what do they do after?
Thankfully, an annual report has answered those questions by tracking down top-scorers over the past decades.
It seems Peking University is the college-of-choice among the most gifted students – 835, to be exact – while economics is the most popular subject.
A total of 835 top-scorers at the provincial-level in the country's national college entrance examination, or gaokao, became Peking University students between 1977 and 2015, a recently published report by a consultancy company showed.
The report, by consultancy company cuaa.net, looks at top-scorers from across the country in the past few decades, before this year's gaokaois sat between June 7 and 9.
Tsinghua University, another top university, followed Peking University to receive 668 top scorers. Fudan University enrolled 55 to rank third, while the University of Science and Technology of China received 54.
The economics major has been the most popular among top scorers, attracting 343 students, followed by business administration and electronic information engineering.
