Thousands upon thousands of high school students sit in small chairs in the same, extraordinarily large room each with piles of books on their small desks studying for what will most likely be not only the hardest, but the most important test of their lives. The Gaokao is the college acceptance test. However that’s the only aspect colleges look at to determine who is accepted and who isn’t. This is seen as a great issue by all the students even those who do considerably well and all their parents. An upfront magazine article entitled, “China’s Cram Schools” shows why this test and what this test causes is worse than just unfair. Overall, because the gaokao has such high stakes, this test takes away from people’s education and lives, is putting far too much pressure on relatively young students and gives wealthier students an advantage not seen in the lower class citizens, therefore making this an unfair and unwarranted test.
One main aspect that makes people dislike this test is how it affects people even before but also after the test is taken. The article “China’s Cram Schools” shows that not only students, but their parents are negatively affected because of this test. For example the text states, “Even with all the nonstop practice, Yang’s scores were slipping. That worried his mother, who moved near the school to be with Yang. The rent on their tiny room was high, rivaling rates in downtown Beijing. But that represented only part of the sacrifice Yang’s parents made to help him become the first in his family to attend college.” This quote shows how this test effects parents. They go through all the trouble of quitting a job, therefore losing a money, then renting a house just to support their child. Parents shouldn’t have to do this, and lose money because so much is riding on the single test. This also ends up putting more pressure on the kids as they have a constant reminder to do well from their parents or they’ll end up having a job like them. Additionally, the kids are obviously negatively affected as well. Besides all the stress and studying they also miss out on their education. The author writes, “Maotanchang has harsher rules and longer hours than typical Chinese high schools. But its curriculum is essentially the same. All 10th- and 11th-graders in China study Chinese language, math, foreign language (usually English), and either social studies and literature or sciences—subjects on the gaokao exam. In 12th grade, students typically just review and memorize what they’ve already learned.” This suggests that not just the harshest and most expensive schools, but even the average chinese school only focuses on gaokao subjects for two years straight. While they are subjects people in most other countries take they don’t get to have a few interesting subjects many other high school students are allowed to have. In addition, the quote shows that they practically miss out on learning anything in all of 12th grade because they simply review subjects they already learned. Basically, this test limits what kids learn, but still determines if they learned enough to get into a college, which is fairly counterproductive. But in no way is it the high schools’ fault, because if they don’t teach it and review it many times, their students won’t get into good schools, will worsen their families’ current situations and won’t have many people try to attend their high school if not many people get into college from it. It’s also not fair to the students because they are only getting to learn a smaller amount of things than many other countries’ students but can’t spend time after school or on weekends to learn anything new because they need to specifically study for that test even three years before at every opportunity on which they can get their hands. This test has the ability to greatly hurt families in many ways and practically keeps them in a loop in which their families have a much harder time getting a good college education or life. If they don’t get into a college, they make less money in their job, making their kids go to a worse school to study with more distractions and worse teachers, because of that they will have a harder time getting into a college, and if they don’t it will continue on and on for that family. An idea which practically everybody finds unjust in a large amount of ways.
Another reason this test is seen as very unfair, is because it puts far too much pressure on children, which obviously negatively affects the students in many ways. This test is all they have been studying for in their last three years or more for every hour of every day taking away from anything else they could’ve done in that time, it’s what their parents have been working to make money for, and what will ultimately determine their lives, and possibly the next couple generations of their families lives.Many people cannot even attempt to imagine the pressure the students must feel every of their lives even possibly years before the test itself. They are reminded of this and pressured constantly by friends, family and teachers. The article states, “ Teenage suicide rates tend to rise as the gaokao nears.” and “‘I only knew that the school was very strict, to the point that some students had supposedly committed suicide,’ he says. ‘That convinced me.’” These are astonishing and important quotes. They demonstrate just how stressful this test is. Not only do we learn that kids commit suicide, but the second portion of the quote shows that it’s a relatively regular thing, even a good thing when picking which school to study at. The text later states that the school mentioned wasn’t strict enough for that particular student who was ordinarily at troublemaker, meaning that this test results in deaths that kids are aware of, kids even base their high schools off of that. But as a kid knowing that many kids commit suicide in this situation, and still have to go right into it requires a certain amount of bravery, something seen by kids in movies maybe, but should never be expected of high school students in real life. The stress puts people's’ lives on the line, which is absolutely, unquestionably absurd. Moreover, the text further explains this as it demonstrates how they are constantly reminded that they must do well, and what is at stake, which is basically the rest of their lives. For instance, ““It’s a lot of pressure,” said Cao. “My mother constantly reminds me that I have to study hard, because my father is out working construction far from home to pay my school fees.” (Even public schools in China charge fees, but Maotanchang’s are higher.) The boys knew that manual labor would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao.” They are- as you can see- completely knowledgeable of what will happen if they fail and who is counting on them not to do so. Having a test is one thing, but when you have others who have sacrificed a lot for you to get where you are and are still there to support you living with you, many people would feel they were letting them down, or taking their support and sacrifices for granted. This may not be the intentions of the parents, however kids still feel the pressure and unfairly have to deal with it.
Lastly, the gaokao shows unfair advantages dependant on the wealth of a specific family. More wealthy families are more likely to do well for unfair reasons as stated in the article. The text states, “Wealthy urban families can hire private tutors, pay for test-prep courses, or bribe their way into the best city schools. And there are far fewer college-admissions spots set aside for rural students than for students from cities.” It would be more justifiable if colleges looked at grades along with the test or if families didn’t cheat/bribe their way to success, however this one test is easily biased towards wealth which has nothing to do with knowledge, or skill at general school related tasks. There’s not much to say here- families get more benefits because they can pay for more extra ways to prepare for the test. If colleges looked at school performance, which has nothing to do with wealth it would be much less biased. Furthermore, the article shows that because so much rides on the test, wealthy families resort to doing sensible things like opting out that poorer families can’t afford to do. The article states, “ Many wealthy families are simply opting out of the system, placing their children in private international schools in China or sending them abroad for an education.” which is unfair because they can still eventually make it to universities, but avoid the test and have the same results. If there were more to base college acceptance on, that idea would not work as well, making it less based on wealth.
However, a few people see all this stress being applied on the children as a positive. That this idea of everything being dependant on this one exam helps the students on the exam. For example, the article states, “The government is pushing reforms to reduce student workloads and allow universities to consider factors other than gaokao scores.” and “But these efforts have met resistance from many parents, who fear that easing the pressure could hurt their children’s exam results and threaten their futures.” These two quotes show that these parents think it is fine to put all this pressure on the kids. That it’s more than fair- it’s helpful. But if you take a step back you can realize this idea doesn’t work too well. They want to keep a test the same, so the same amount of pressure is put on students, so they can do well on the test. But if you count more than the test and make less work required as the government is trying to do, their score won’t be noticeably affected, but even if the scores go down the test won’t count for as much because the government would have colleges look at other aspects of a student's academic career. Overall, no matter how you look at it, the gaokao test and all its pressure it puts on students is still unfair.
In conclusion, the gaokao exam is incredibly unfair and dangerous to the students, their
parents and many other people involved in a great variety of ways. Benefits are given to certain groups, too much is expected of the relatively young students putting too much pressure on them, and the test that tests what you learn, takes away from what you can learn for at the very least three years of the students’ lives. All of which could be easily avoidable by simply altering the test in a few ways. But as it remains many people cannot handle these incredibly difficult conditions and while they cannot help it, these students may unintentionally end up ruining families all over China.
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