Wireless cheating intercepted in national exam

TAIYUAN - Radio signals have been intercepted from exam rooms where students were sitting China's ongoing national college entrance exam in North China's Shanxi province, said the provincial radio management authority on Saturday.

According to a spokesman for the bureau, it captured 10 wireless signals from exam rooms in Jincheng and Linfen cities on the first day of China's national exam on Friday.

Approximately 9.12 million students are sitting the exam to vie for access to the country's universities and colleges in 310,000 exam rooms at 7,300 venues nationwide.

The exam is known as the "single-log bridge" to a Chinese university and many examinees view it as a "life-or-death" moment and a prerequisite to securing a good job after graduation.

To ensure fair play in the crucial test, Chinese authorities have tightened up the fight against cheating and test fraud.

Shanxi's radio management bureau blocked the wireless communications from the exam rooms on Friday, and traced two of the signals to help police catch two suspects and seize three pieces of radio apparatus that they are suspected of using for the exam cheating.

The bureau has been involved in the fight against exam cheating since last year's national exam, when it caught 21 people cheating, some using voice sending communications, others uploading numbers or graphic messages to mobile gadgets secretly taken by students into exam rooms.