On June 7, the first day of the college entrance examination in mainland China, the language test paper in Hainan Province did not have barcodes. It was reported that due to printing errors, the barcodes were not issued. On that day, the essay question in the New Curriculum Standard I paper involved the popularization of the Internet, and artificial intelligence (AI). Netizens criticized the exam question for not taking into consideration rural students and lacking depth.
The first day of the mainland college entrance examination included the language subject test from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. This year, a total of 13.42 million people nationwide registered for the exam, with 7,926 examination centers set up across the country.
At noon on the 7th, after the language subject exam, netizens revealed that barcodes were not issued during the language exam in Hainan Province.
The barcodes on the exam answer sheets are mainly used for computer grading. High-speed scanners scan the test papers onto the computer for online grading, with the corresponding student information stored in the barcodes.
The Beijing News reported that relevant personnel from the Hainan Provincial Examination Office confirmed the issue, stating that due to printing errors, the barcodes were not issued but assured that it would not affect the subsequent exams and grading. The provincial examination office will later embed barcodes on the papers based on the students’ names and admission card numbers.
When asked about the time it would take to embed the barcodes and whether it would affect the grading and results release schedule, the personnel mentioned that a special meeting was already held in the morning with all test centers to address the issue and any updates will be communicated.
Netizens questioned: “Who takes responsibility if a student fails to fill in their exam number?”, “Where are the rules?”, “Seems like there are important figures among this year’s Hainan candidates.” Some comments also raised concerns about potential cheating at the test centers and demanded a thorough investigation.
During the language subject examination that day, the essay question in the New Curriculum Standard I paper was: “With the proliferation of the Internet and the application of artificial intelligence, more and more questions can be quickly answered. Will our questions therefore decrease? What does the above material inspire you to think about? Please write an essay.”
This essay question was applicable to candidates in Shandong, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Hebei, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui, and Henan provinces.
The essay question sparked a lot of criticism among netizens.
“Why does this question seem problematic?”, “Is this question about questioning or problem-solving?”
“Some netizens believe this question is unfair, as many students from remote areas may not have had any exposure to artificial intelligence, let alone experience it.” One comment expressed sympathy for children in rural areas who might not even know terms like chatgpt or what a “beanbag” is.
“The essence of education is selection, so the college entrance examination is meant to filter out students based on family backgrounds.”
“After looking back at the college entrance examination essay from our rural experience, it feels a bit funny. Kids in the city might have more exposure to mobile phones; rural kids study hard and see playing with phones as shameful. Now you give them some modern topic in an essay, doesn’t it just seem like a joke? Someone who has been in contact with textbooks for more than a decade, how do you expect them to come up with interesting points of view?”
“Without a standard answer, how could questions decrease? This is where the importance of ‘unified thinking’ is highlighted.”