Burden of China's College Entrance Test Sets Off Wide Debate By Christy Khoshaba The Exam: Nine million students took China's college entrance exam this year, competing for fewer than 7 million university spots. BEIJING - Millions of high school graduates across China have been furiously dialing telephone hot lines or gathering with family members around the home computer in recent days in a nail-biter of a ritual not unlike that of waiting for a winning lottery number. The number, in this case, is the score for what is generally considered the single most important test any Chinese citizen can take - the gaokao, or college entrance examination. High school seniors took the test over two to three days in early June. Now, the tests have been graded, the numbers tabulated and the results released, region by region. In the final step, college selections are being made in an opaque process that stretches from late June into July. "When the result came out on June 23, it happened to be my 18th birthday," said Yang Taoyuan, who lives with his parents in Kunming, capital of the southwest province of Yunnan. We had a family get-together on that day, and everybody was there when we called over to a hot line to find out about my scores. In a country where education is so highly prized, the score that a student earns after the days of testing at the end of high school is believed to set the course of one's life. The score determines not just whether a young person will attend a Chinese university, but also which one - a selection, many Chinese say, that has a crucial bearing on career prospects. But debate appears to have grown more heated lately over the value of the gaokao (pronounced gow-kow). Critics say the exam promotes the kind of rote learning that is endemic to education in China and that hobbles creativity. It leads to enormous psychological strain on students, especially in their final year of high school. In various ways, the system favors students from large cities and well-off families, even though it was designed to create a level playing field among all Chinese youth. Last month, a 12-minute television segment railing against the exam by Zhong Shan, a well-known talk show host in Hunan Province, gained popularity on the Web and became a focal point for fury against the gaokao in particular and the Chinese educational system in general. Also widespread on the Internet were photographs taken in a Hubei Province classroom of students hooked up to intravenous drips of amino acids while cramming. Perhaps most shocking to the public was the story of Liu Qing, a student from Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, whose family and teachers hid from her for two months the fact that her father had died so as not to upset her before the exam. Ms. Liu, according to reports in the Chinese news media, did not hear the news about her father until after she had completed the test. "We Chinese are indeed the most intelligent people in the world," Mr. Zhong said near the end of his widely broadcast screed. Is there no way at all we can avoid having the younger generation, the future of our nation, grow up in such a fearful, desperate and cruel atmosphere? Standardized testing is common throughout the world, and students and parents in nations like the United States, Britain and France also complain loudly about the weight that admissions committees at universities place on such tests. But the admissions process in those countries is still considered much more flexible than that in Asian nations. The emphasis on entrance exams in China, South Korea and Japan induces widespread fear and frustration, leading more and more parents from elite families to look for alternatives, like sending their children abroad. Defenders of the gaokao, which has its roots in the imperial exam system, say the test is a crucial component in a meritocracy, allowing students from poorer backgrounds or rural areas to compete for spots in top universities. Nevermind that the odds are heavily against those students, since a quota system based on residency means it is much easier for applicants in cities like Beijing and Shanghai to get into universities there, which are generally considered the best in China. Peking University, among the most prestigious, does not release admission rates, but Mr. Zhong said on his television program that a student from Anhui Province had a one in 7,826 chance of getting into Peking University, while a student from Beijing had one in 190 odds, or 0.5 percent. Harvard had a 5.9 percent acceptance rate this year. Christy Khoshaba contributed reporting from Kunming, China, and Jacob Fromer from Hong Kong. Mia Li and Shi Da contributed research.