Students set record as gaokao begins

One of the parents, Wang Jiao, said she wanted her daughter to see her as soon as she walked out of the test room.

"I am very proud of her for all the effort she put into preparing for the exam, especially during the epidemic," she said. "No matter how the results go, the gaokao is a valuable experience."

"The final year of high school is filled with challenges, and it is more stressful this year as the exam has been delayed due to the COVID-19 epidemic," said a teacher surnamed Shi from the Shanghai Experimental School.

"We've been focused on psychological counseling for students, and so far, they are in a stable mood," Shi told local media ThePaper.cn.

Yan Jie, a student from Beijing Zhongguancun Foreign Language School who took the gaokao on Tuesday at Zhongguancun High School, the largest gaokao testing center in Beijing this year, said the college entrance tests are much easier than what she expected as the COVID-19 epidemic had lowered the difficulty of the exams.

"There were some blind spots during the Chinese test, but mostly I answered those questions smoothly," the 19-year-old said.

Yan's classmate, Wu Tong, 18, said the test-takers at the high school had plenty of room.

"Around 20 students sat in a classroom, which previously held about 30 students tightly," she said, adding that taking the nucleic acid test is necessary to enter the test center for the exam.

Some parents have made extra efforts to bestow good fortune upon their children.

Jia Ling, mother of a high school student in Beijing, told China Daily that she wore a red, tailor-made traditional qipao, or cheongsam, to the test center for good luck.

Red is traditionally associated with good fortune in China, and qipao shares a character that is used in the Chinese phrase "success at first attempt", or qi kai de sheng.

She also drove her son to the test center in a BMW, as the Chinese translation of the brand's name Baoma shares a character used in the Chinese phrase "success on arrival", or ma dao cheng gong.

She wore Nike shoes for the resemblance between the company's "swoosh" logo and the universal symbol of success, the tick.

"My son had a good laugh about such superstitions, but I am serious," she said. "That's the least I can do."

Cao Chen in Shanghai and Xin Wen in Beijing contributed to this story.