<p>I thought this was an interesting article for people like me for whom the testing process in China is unfamiliar:</p>
<p>[China’s</a> SAT, if the SAT lasted two days, covered everything you’d ever studied, and decided your future. - By Manuela Zoninsein - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2192732/]China’s”>China's SAT, if the SAT lasted two days, covered everything you'd ever studied, and decided your future.)</p>
<p>Some time ago I read an article where some big exam was in progress. There was dog(s?) barking somewhere. The parents had the dog(s) shot because they don’t want the kids to be disturbed and scores lowed. 
</p>
<p>So much hopes and dreams are invested in one stupid exam.</p>
<p>Very interesting. My son has been working in China for the last 15 months so I have been doing lots of reading on China. I read one article which mentioned that in some areas planes are prohibited from flying over the testing centers – or nearby cars cannot honk their horns. Sounds way more stressful than our SATs.</p>
<p>gao kao doesn’t actually reference the difficulty… it stands for high school exam. Also, it doesn’t cover everything you’ve learned since kindergarten. I’m not even being a schmuck about it, it has like, sections: physics, biology, chemistry, math, english, chinese… just more sections than the SAT. And way harder.</p>
<p>also, here are some more inaccuracies:</p>
<p>[Slate</a> -> The Fray -> Dispatches](<a href=“http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/1341386.aspx?ArticleID=2192732]Slate”>http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/1341386.aspx?ArticleID=2192732)</p>
<p>My cousin’s taking it this month in Sichuan, and due to the earth quake having destroyed a lot of the communication systems in the town, they’ll be taking it without the listening section on the English portion of the exam. She’s like totally freaking cause that’s what her school is best at preparing their students for… the system way sucks, but w/ the rampant higher level corruption in every government-run system, it’s probably the best they can do in the short term to keep things on level ground.</p>
<p>I know a young man who moved here from China a couple years ago. He is so grateful to his parents for moving here!!! He told me that the exam is unbelievably difficult … and so stressful. While I often worry about our country dumbing down, I certainly don’t want to do what China does. There must be a happy medium.</p>
<p>Well, just remember that the total number of students taking the test is > 10 millions. More than half will go to a university. If you look at the top students here, they’re in the top 10% of the class, so it’s very likely that they will do well there as well. The teaching and learning style are different, but that doesn’t mean that the average kids in China are more capable than the average kids here.</p>