Also reminds me of the story from India like 1 or 2 years ago where a test had faulty answers and people thought they didn't get into university because of that
First, they are offered once a year. Didn't do as well as you hope? Try again next year.
Second, the material is significantly harder. Take math as an example. The exam questions are a lot closer to AMC/AIME than to SAT. In fact, suppose language is not a problem, many Chinese middle schooler would do pretty well on SAT's math section. Also you are not allowed any calculator.
Finally, for the vast majority of students, the test score is literally the only factor deciding whether you get into college. Basically, you will provide an ordered list of preferences to colleges and majors, and the student with top score's request would be satisfied first, then the second, the third, etc.
One 'neat' tweak that the Indians take is the publication of the scores. You find out how you did because your name and score are printed in the newspaper, along with everyone else's.
So all the gossipy aunties and your folk's friends know your score and you know the scores of everyone else in school.
The social pressure to do well is insane. Your score reflects on your family, not just you.
It got the "What did you get?" conversations out of the way pretty quickly!
For the most prestigious University majors, this results in two sets of students: Those that had good enough grades to get in on their first try, straight out of school - or those that simply have to wait X number of years, until they've re-taken enough classes, gained enough age points, and what not.
One roomie of me during college had spent like 5 years doing all that, before finally getting accepted to medical studies. It's insane.
But still, with all that, I really feel bad for the students in China / India / Singapore / etc. where your future pretty much rests on one exam, and that's that.
At least here in the west, especially richer northern counties, people can "screw around" for years trying to find their way, without it hurting them too much - financially, or professionally.
Calculators shouldn’t be allowed on any mathematics examination. With limited exceptions, high-school mathematics and beyond is not really about arithmetic or numerical solutions, but about demonstrating understanding, which you don’t need a calculator for.
Questions on exams that use numerics also put people with dyscalculia at a disadvantage even if they have great ability at differential and integral calculus and other symbolic operations.
But mainly because it’s the best way to sneak-in crib notes past the exam invigilators. Especially in the US where everyone uses TI graphical calculators (yay for regulatory capture).
Here is what I know back then as a student who took GaoKao in the 90s:
1. GaoKao also has provincial variants.
For example, back in the year when I took GaoKao, my city used a form called "3+1", which means 3 primary (Chinese, Math and English) plus 1 auxiliary. You can choose the auxiliary at the end of 11th grade, and the choices are Politics, History, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc. Other provinces used different forms but the majority were and still are on "3+2", so instead of one auxiliary they have to prepare for two.
From what I recalled, a few years after some provinces switched to 3+X (X depends on your choice). You still only get 1 exam for the X though.
2. Different universities have different entry scores for different provinces.
For example, I got a score of 420/600 I think? The university I went to actually charged different entry scores for different provinces. It makes sense in one way, as different provinces have different forms of GaoKao, but overall it's very unfair to students from less developed areas. I won't expand the reasoning from here but it has been a huge debate since decades ago.
Which subject goes in each of those categories depends on the major you're applying for, so you have to decide what you'll want to study in university at age ~17 (or prior to that, really, when you're 15 in High School so you can focus your studies on the harder questions). For instance, if you want to go to Med School (which is an undergrad course in Brazil), you need to know all things Biology, from Nemathelminthes to the Krebs Cycle. Conversely, if you want to go Law School (also undergrad) or major in History, you'll need to know everything that happened between Plato and Gorbachev including really in-depth stuff on Brazilian history. The problem is, all of the High School classes are the same regardless of your intended exam – you have to learn all of the above for school along with everyone else.
And you get to take the same exam for each university you apply to, meaning you basically spend a year taking exams at various dates for all the good universities. Each major has X number of spots available to candidates, to the top X scores get in. Your extracurriculars, who you are as a person, anything on your resume is irrelevant. All that matters is your score.
Want to switch majors? Gotta drop out, take the exam again and restart your university life.
The SAT by comparison is an absolute joke of an exam
Damn.
Sounds absolutely brutal. That said, I was caught with the quoted paragraph. Why should your extracurricular hobbies or "you as a person" matter? As far as I see, all that should be considered in university admissions is indeed your test scores.
They certainly do at elite US schools. The logic is that there's no shortage of students who could handle the academic work but Harvard or even MIT aren't looking just to admit the students who did best on an exam.
Added: The way it at least used to be done (and I assume this still applies at least somewhat) was that quantitative academic scores are used to set something of a floor but, beyond that, they were just one of the factors that went into admissions decisions. (With weights and other considerations doubtless varying by school.)
They become very interested in questions like "does this person have volunteer experience that might have exposed them to a worldview larger than themselves?", "do they have a sport or hobby they enjoy which might provide them a boon in mental health?", "have they done anything which would require practical application of skills or collaboration beyond raw book learning?"
The same kind of thing comes up in job interviews all the time. As a hiring manager, I'm of course most interested in whether the candidate can perform the hard requirements of the job as described. But I'd also like signals about whether you're at risk for burnout, whether you might have empathy for differing points of view, or whether you can think on your feet in non-ideal scenarios or whether you'll crumble if a plan changes or a compromise must be found.
People are complex, and well-roundedness is a worthwhile goal on its own for a complex world. There are relatively few scenarios outside of standardized testing where raw academic or technical ability is the exclusive measure of a person.
I'm not familiar with an academic system like this so I can't really comment if it's giving good outcomes vs. purely academic selection. My country is small enough to have a single top tier university and multiple second level institutions, so I'm ingrained with the idea you should choose the best academic candidates from a limited applicant pool.
College itself is where you get a larger worldview. Requiring people have it already seems like a great way to exclude people trapped by family and financial constraints.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_Cuomo [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Savage [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Watson [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reese_Witherspoon [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Woods
That said, you might be surprised at the number of people who even go to a school like MIT and end up in journalism or something else that isn't obviously related to what you associate the school with.
You see no value to taking a music theory class with a platinum artist in your discussions on song structure? Or maybe the rock star wants to expand his horizons a bit and is also in your Ethics class discussing the effect of Napster on his ability to afford tuition. Or maybe he sits next to you in Econ and wants to use his experience in the music biz as the basis for your group project. etc, etc...
Forget the exam nerds, I'll take the real players every time. YMMV
The "real players" could also visit as guest lecturers on your music theory class, assuming they have good enough merits on the subject.
Each university publishes the grades they will accept at a minimum for each major so you essentially choose your major at 17, or really 15 as mentioned above, because you need certain subjects with an “A” result to enroll at the university.
At uni itself, almost all classes are mandatory for a given major with only one or two chances to take an elective. Failing a class at any point usually means either dropping out completely or being moved to a less prestigious major (e.g. “general science” instead of a CS degree).
It’s definitely stressful.
Over the last generation there has been massive grade inflation back when I left school getting 3A's where very rare
My comment on grading is also pretty objective, imo. Your AP score is 1-5. And the curve is crazy; when I took AP Physics C E&M I would have gotten a 5 whether I scored 60% or 100%. When reported, though, nobody will know what percentage of the points you scored. OTOH gaokao scores are reported in full.