At Huainan No. 2 High School, the last self-study session before the Gaokao. Photo from Sina.
Introduction
Which event has most changed your life? It is usually hard to give a clear, definitive answer. However, in China, there is a standard reply: it is the Gaokao, the nation-wide university entrance exam. It is hard to overemphasise the significance of the Gaokao in the national consciousness—every year in June, celebrities record videos to encourage examinees, crowds throng temples to pray to divinities associated with wisdom and intelligence, and motivational slogans are hung on the main gate of every high school, at least in my home city of Hangzhou. The most famous slogan of the pack is probably “one exam determines the rest of your life” (一考定终生). The common sentiment behind this phrase goes: a good score in Gaokao will gain you entry into a good university; a good university will lead you into a good company; a good company will bring you a good salary and social prestige; and these will finally enable you to form a happy family. Though such formulations may be somewhat overdramatic, it is still true for most Chinese that the Gaokao determines access to higher education and social mobility.Howlett, Zachary M. Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Anxiety and the National College Entrance Exam in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021.
The 2017 oath-taking rally (誓师大会) at Hengshui High School, one of the top high schools famous for their students’ performance in the Gaokao. An oath-taking rally is a ceremony meant to encourage students and teachers during the final lead-up to the examination. These ceremonies are frequently couched in military metaphors. In this video, the speaker addresses the students as “warriors” (“勇士” and “战士”) and the speech ends with the phrase “This decisive battle of a hundred days, I will surely succeed.” (“决战百天，我必成功。”)
However, this top slogan is no longer accurate, not because the Gaokao is any less important but because it is no longer “one exam.” In 2014, national authorities announced plans to reform the Gaokao system in order to “to make education more equitable and to improve the selection process.” These extensive reforms have had and will continue to have far-reaching consequences for an entire generation of Chinese youths.
Authorities claim that this reform is a success. However, the fact that many provinces continue to push back the actual implementation of the reform suggests otherwise.[mfn]For example, Henan province was supposed to implement the Gaokao reforms in 2018. However, this did not happen, and it announced in 2020 that it would only officially begin the new Gaokao in 2022, another two years later.[/mfn]
As a recently-graduated student of an established public high school in China, I am part of the first few batches of students who have personally gone through the reformed system. Given this rare insider perspective, I shall examine in this essay some of the impacts of these changes based on the experiences of my peers and myself. This is not meant to be an exhaustive evaluation of the reform, and so I will focus on the specific Gaokao subject of Physics as a case study, analysing the changing social attitudes towards it. In so doing, I will argue that the new reform fails to realise its goal of cultivating a diversity of academic interests and making education less exam-oriented. Rather, the strong social pressures on Gaokao students have caused the reform to effect little more than a shift in exam-preparation strategies, and the system continues to stifle students’ personal intellectual development.
Background
After more than 40 years since being reestablished following a ten-year pause during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the Gaokao, the most important exam in China, is undergoing a big transformation. Yuan Zhengguo, the Secretary General of the National Education Committee, together with Professor Zhou Bin from East China Normal University statedYuan, Zhengguo, and Bin Zhou. “以改革姿态迎接新高考改革.” 人民教育, 2016, 10–15. that the aims of the reform are: to change the notion that “one exam determines the rest of your life,” to make the Gaokao more scientific and equitable, and to give students the right to choose the subjects they want to study. By doing so, authorities hope to help students develop their individuality.[mfn]In the original Chinese: “新高考改革抓住了选择性和多样性两个核心概念,旨在系统改变‘一考定终身’和‘一分定乾坤’的传统弊端，开辟更科学、更公平高考的新格局.新高考赋予了高中生对高考学科更大的选择权和组合权，并将高考学科与大学专业选择相关联，力图推动高中教育的系统变革，从而促进高中学生的个性成长和高中学校办出特色。”[/mfn] Minister of Education Chen Baosheng announced that the reform was to be implemented nationwide by 2020. Meanwhile, a pilot reform for college recruitment would be put in place in Shanghai and Zhejiang province in 2014, targeted towards the class of 2017.
The exact policy changes are as follows. Firstly, the reform replaces the earlier separation into the Sciences stream and the Humanities stream. Students were traditionally streamed at the end of their first year in high school.[mfn]Equivalent to 10th grade in the United States.[/mfn] From that point onwards, students could only take courses within their respective stream and their Gaokao exam would also feature those same subjects. The subjects are physics, chemistry, and biology for the Sciences stream, and history, politics, and geography for the Humanities stream.Xiong, Zesheng. “Are Negative Perceptions Justified? Examining the Impact of Gaokao Reforms on High School Students in China.” PhD diss., Tufts University, 2020. However, this separation impeded some students from freely pursuing their intellectual interests, as they were pushed to maximise their advantages in the Gaokao.[mfn]For example, a student who is good at or interested in history, biology, and geography has to abandon the study of one or two of these subjects in grade 10 because history and geography belong to the Humanities stream while biology belongs to the Sciences stream. The student can only take the grouping of subjects offered under each stream and are unable to pick specific combinations of subjects.[/mfn] The new reform removes the streaming and, in theory, allows the students to freely choose any combination of three subjects out of the six listed above. (Zhejiang province uniquely offers Technology as a seventh option.) Their Gaokao will therefore examine them on the three subjects of their choice alongside the three compulsory subjects of Chinese, mathematics, and a foreign language.
Secondly, the reform enables students to have a second chance, allowing them retake exams for certain subjects. Under the old system, unless the student is willing to retake their 12th year, a typical high school student in China only has one shot (across two or three days in early June) to take the exams that will determine the rest of her life.Xiong, Zesheng. “Are Negative Perceptions Justified? Examining the Impact of Gaokao Reforms on High School Students in China.” PhD diss., Tufts University, 2020.
Affecting the class of 2017, the new reform held the first new exam in October 2015. For the three subjects they chose, students have two chances to take examinations in a total of four time slots—October and April in both grade 10 or 11. They also have two chances to take the Foreign Language exam: one exam is in October, which they can choose to take in grade 9, 10, or 11, and the second one has to be together with Chinese and mathematics in June, grade 11. (There is still only one chance to take Chinese and mathematics.)
Thirdly, the reform changes the scoring system of the three non-compulsory subjects chosen by the students. Instead of using the raw score, scores are now assigned according to a bell curve relative to the other students taking the same subject at the same time slot.
The Mess of Physics
Why Choose Physics?
• Filial nationalism
My family has never tired of telling me the story of Qian Xuesen, a scientist who led the Chinese nuclear weapon program. (Given that he shared the same surname as us, the implication is that he is our distant relative.) My grandfather’s version of the story always included this sentence: “He (Qian) understood the best way to serve his motherland and so he dedicated himself to physics research.”
Filial nationalism is a term coined by anthropologist Vanessa Fong to describe how contemporary Chinese youths conceive of national loyalty as analogous to, and as an extension of, the unconditional devotion owed to their parents.Fong, Vanessa. “Filial Nationalism Among Chinese Teenagers with Global Identities.” American Ethnologist 31, no. 4 (2004): 631-648. The association of physics with filial nationalism (“serve his motherland”) goes beyond a personal anecdote. In the 1960s, China’s success in developing nuclear weaponry and artificial satellites was believed to greatly increase China’s global influence, contribute to subsequent successes in diplomacy, destroy hegemonic nuclear monopoly, and ensure that China safely navigated the dangers of the Cold War.Li, Tingfu. “浅谈“两弹一星”成就的伟大历史意义.” 首届中国两弹一星历史研究高层论坛, 2009. Thus, due to its role in helping China gain geopolitical influence on the international stage, the study of physics is highly esteemed across the nation.
This association is still highly relevant today. Recently, Chinese media outlets have reported many news stories about the obstacles to technological progress owing to the economic sanctions imposed by other countries. Thus, scientific study and research is regarded as an effective means to make China more technologically self-sufficient and hence maintain the nation’s prosperity.[mfn]For example, the mass media portrayed “Made in China 2025” as a great defence from Trump’s National Defense Authorization Act in 2020.[/mfn] Mass media also tend to portray physics as the foundation and epitome of scientific pursuit, and therefore the study of physics and other STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is perceived as a key factor in overcoming such obstacles.[mfn]E.g. this proposal from the Communist Youth League advocating for more artificial intelligence courses in universities.[/mfn]
As a public high school in China, my high school is famous for cultivating students, especially science students, who later go to top Chinese universities via the Gaokao exam. The supervisor of the class of 2020—also my geography teacher—was adamant in trying to persuade students to study physics for the Gaokao. He framed such study as “shouldering the responsibility for national development.”
“If even promising students like you don’t study physics,” he once said in his geography class, “who is going to defend our country in the future?” (Note also the rhetoric of national defense in his exhortation.) Ironically, he also admitted that he recommended the study of geography not out of any similar high ideal but because it was the strength of our school, and hence easier to get a high score.
• “Proof” of intelligence
In my school, intelligence, as opposed to diligence, is perceived as a more desirable trait. Students often pretend to be less diligent in order to highlight their “natural intelligence.” Many students claim that they go directly to bed after the compulsory self-study session ending at 9pm, but in reality, continued studying even under their blankets using torchlights. (The school dormitories had a compulsory lights-off policy at 10 p.m.)
Out of the six non-compulsory subjects, physics is the one most associated with “innate intelligence” rather than memorisation. As a result, the choice of physics confers (or is thought to confer) an additional prestige onto students who take it. Given that, is it any surprise that when it came time to choose Gaokao subjects, physics was the only one that was oversubscribed? There were several students who had neither the talent for nor any substantial interest in it, yet they still took it despite repeated attempts to dissuade them.
On a side note, gender stereotypes inevitably play a part. There has long been a general perception in China that male students are better at logical reasoning while female students tend to be more diligent. In my school, while teachers did not intentionally discriminate between male and female students in their teaching and academic advising, the distinction was still very clear. In grade 10, classes were reshuffled based on the students’ chosen Gaokao subject combination. Out of thirteen classes, only three were for non-physics students. In two out of those three non-physics classes, female students outnumbered male students by a ratio of five to one.[mfn]The remaining class was for students who chose both geography and technology, two subjects that were more associated with male students.[/mfn] Most parents whom I have interacted with still believe that this is a distinction rooted in biological differences rather than gender stereotypes, which itself perpetuates the stereotype.
Why Not Choose Physics？
• Game Theory
Though the choice of physics among Chinese students can stem from filial nationalism and a desire to “prove” one’s intelligence, the reality of the Gaokao pulls students in an opposite direction. Here I argue that, due to the nature of university admissions, examinees’ subject choices under the new reform are greatly influenced by strategic considerations at the expense of personal intellectual development.
Exactly like the pre-reform Gaokao, the reformed exam is a zero-sum game: there is a fixed number of positions for university admissions, and so one spot for me means one less spot for you. The two differ, however, in that the reformed Gaokao invites more strategising than its previous iteration. This is because, under the new system of grading by the bell curve, one’s Gaokao results depend not only on one’s ability and luck, but also—and even more so—on who you are competing with in the same exam. Thus, the basic strategy is: avoid competing with high-performing students in the same exam. With a pool of less competitive peers, you will therefore rank higher and get a better score.
There are then two obvious tactics: avoid taking exams in the same time slot as high-performing students, and avoid subjects that high-performing students prefer. Unfortunately, given that many high-performing students will be drawn to physics due to the factors discussed above, physics then becomes a perfect example of a subject for less competitive students to avoid.
Even at the very beginning of the reform, many less competitive students did not choose physics, leaving high-performing students competing with one another. (My school, with physics being oversubscribed, is an exception due to its high concentration of high-performing students.) It is said that, in the first year of the new reform, the competition was so intense that there were too many students who got a perfect score. That is, by the bell curve, the top 1% of scorers should have been assigned the top score. However, more than 1% of the students already achieved a perfect score in the exam and so there would have been “too many” top scorers. The story goes that the administration had to make the grading standard more stringent and pick out more “mistakes” in order to ensure that only 1% of students got the top score.
This information was not and will never be confirmed by the authorities because it would reflect negatively on the success of the reform. As a rumor, however, it is still powerful enough to drive away even more students. Moreover, during the first year of the reform, there were nearly no subject prerequisites for the choice of major in university. In other words, even if you studied history, politics, and geography in high school (the humanities subjects under the old Gaokao system) you would still be able to get into the Engineering department, which under the old system was impossible. The sole factor of admission then becomes your total Gaokao score.
Thus, how much you could score became far more important than what exactly you studied. Naturally, many students, parents, and teachers then strived to ensure that their subjects’ pool was relatively less competitive. Parents did all they could to gather information about the subject combinations chosen by other students. Teachers also sometimes tried to covertly gather such information on competitor schools. Avoiding the subjects that were chosen by many high-performing students in top schools has therefore become an open secret.
The imbalance between subject choice resulted in further problems. University professors complained that many students majoring in STEM lack the basic knowledge of physics that they were supposed to learn in high school. (This was not a problem under the old system because only students who were in the Science stream could major in STEM.) Universities therefore had to open new courses to teach basic physics to those students.
This array of factors together forms a vicious circle: because fewer students chose physics and those who did were all high-performing students, students who are interested but who are less confident in their abilities dare not choose it in the future, further increasing the concentration of high-performing students.
There is a striking drop in students who choose to learn physics in high school. The available data shows that in the exam time slot of November 2017, around 74,000 students chose to take the physics exam, the lowest among available subjects (see the chart below). This is compared to around 160,000 in 2011.
In 2018, the authorities no longer released the data of students who chose physics. Many parents viewed this as evidence that students who took the physics exam were so few that the authorities feared that its release might scare away more students.
Solving the Mess?
In November 2017, the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province issued a policy to set 65,000 as the basic number of examinees for the physics exam. In other words, if there are less than 65,000 examinees, the process of score assignation by percentage would round up and assume that there are 65,000 in this pool. This reform is attractive to students because it increases their score. For example, if only 20,000 students take the exam and a student ranks as the 10,000th, her score will normally be 73 (as the 50th percentile). However, under the new policy, she will rank among the top 15 percent and her assigned score will become 88.
In addition, most majors in universities began to require students to study specific subjects in high school. Among all the subjects, physics then became the most popular one. (If you choose physics you can apply to 91% of majors, while history students can only apply to 62.8%). Majors which are closer to the humanities or social sciences than science, e.g. law (Peking University), English (Renmin University of China) and philosophy (Fudan University), are also open to physics students no matter what their other two subjects were. Some popular majors, such as economics, even require students to choose physics, even if these two subjects do not have an obvious relationship. Some media outlets interpret the rationale for requiring physics to be that its study “cultivates students’ observational and practical abilities, their innovative spirit, and their logical reasoning” and that “it pertains to the core competitive strength of national technological development.”[mfn]In the original Chinese: “培养学生的观察能力、实践能力、创新精神和逻辑推理能力” and “物理是理工类专业人才培养的基础性学科，事关国家科技发展核心竞争力。”[/mfn] This interpretation reveals precisely the same associations of physics with filial nationalism and “intelligence” that I outline above.
However, is this development a new revival of the admiration for physics or simply a new form of strategising? One mother asked her daughter, a relatively average student studying outside of the top schools who was taking the new Gaokao in 2019, to choose physics. This was because the mother estimated that there would be far less than 65,000 examinees and her daughter would hence be able to score higher. In addition, as most students in that batch did not choose physics, they could not apply to the numerous university majors that required physics. Therefore, her daughter would have far fewer competitors if she applied for those majors.
The Missing Interest
The tension between aspirational ideals and realistic calculations does exist in the choice of subject. However, on this battlefield of conflicting considerations, we hardly detect the presence of students’ intellectual interests, nominally the primary concern of the reform.
Moreover, the exam-oriented method of teaching remains unaltered—repeated drills and strict rules further detach students from their academic interests. I clearly remember my headteacher saying to me: “It is exactly because you are interested in history that you should not take it. Otherwise, you will grow to hate it.”
Whether they ultimately choose to take (or not take) physics—be it out of filial nationalism, the desire to “prove” one’s intelligence, or sheerly strategic considerations—the students are trying to be either dutiful citizens, smart students, or successful examinees. During this process, the expression of academic interests is extremely limited. Two reasons may account for the failure of reviving this missing emphasis on interest.
Firstly, the Gaokao reform only changes the method of score counting. By changing the method, it seems to have generated some changes in high schools as well. However, the reform fails to change the importance of high scores because the method of college selection is still unchanged. As long as university admissions remain so competitive and colleges still select students solely based on their Gaokao scores, it is hard for students not to take into account strategic considerations. Moreover, the exam-oriented method of teaching remains unaltered—repeated drills and strict rules further detach students from their academic interests. I clearly remember my headteacher saying to me: “It is exactly because you are interested in history that you should not take it. Otherwise, you will grow to hate it.”
Secondly, the missing interest is a reflection of a weak sense of individual identity in general. Students are under a lot of social influence and are assigned different social roles, all of which undermines their individuality. They are deeply concerned about how to be good children for their parents, how to be good students for their school, and how to be good citizens for their country. It is not easy to directly prove how much students are acting to satisfy their roles in their family, schools, or the country. However, it is common to see students sitting with their parents and headteachers to discuss their choice of subjects. Moreover, it is also common for a family to gather relatives from various generations to have a “family meeting” to discuss this issue. Evidently, the choice of subject is not only a personal matter but also a decision to be made by the family and even the school. Other than personal interests, students also need to consider the reaction of their peers, families, and teachers. Moreover, under the influence of Confucianism, collective interests are often emphasised, sometimes at the expense of individual choice. The sacrificing of personal interests for more people’s satisfaction is praised, while the reverse is frequently criticized. Students who stick to their interests regardless of others’ advice are sometimes described as “selfish,” “stubborn,” or “inconsiderate.”
Conclusion
This article discussed how the new reform does not fulfil its original aims in improving the education system, and may even complicate the whole process and further downplay personal intellectual interests. However, this is not to say that the new reform, or the endeavour to give Chinese students more choices and chances, has no merit. In fact, I personally appreciate the courage to challenge this rigid educational institution that has stood unshaken for forty years. But no matter the direction of the reform, the Gaokao as an examination always inherits the underlying purpose of selecting and stratifying. From my perspective, simply changing the method of selection—the very end of the whole educational pathway—is not enough to alter the fundamental condition of education in Chinese society. Moreover, the economic foundation of China has not been strong enough to realise the ideology that the new reform depicted. Perhaps the new reform applies more suitably to a future where young people face less pressure in finding jobs, buying houses, getting married, and raising children, where decent survival is not a luxury. But again, the difficulty China is facing is not unique. Just like poetry, individuality and intellectual fulfilment still remain unaffordable in many parts of the world.
Many thanks to Professor Zachary Howlett and Wang Ziying for their invaluable guidance and support. Credits also to Wang Xing Hao and Danan Lee for their editorial work on this piece.
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