From Reuters:
Cui Weiping had become an adept cotton farmer and tractor driver in a bleak east China village in 1977 when college entrance exams were restored after the 10-year frenzy of the Cultural Revolution .
“It was a profound turning point in my life,” said 51-year-old Cui, now a professor at the Beijing Film Academy .
Underground reading on the farm helped make Cui one of the 220,000 lucky ones — out of a staggering backlog of 5.7 million candidates — to get through that year’s hastily held exams.
This year, a record 10 million Chinese youngsters will sit the two-day National College Entrance Exam, starting on Thursday, vying for about half that number of university places.
The entrance exam — commonly known as “gaokao” in Chinese — is credited as the backbone of China’s remarkable reform-era growth in the 30 years since it was restored, despite mounting criticism that it encourages rote learning and puts too much pressure on overburdened adolescents.[Full Text]
