A 36-year-old man has become known as “China’s most stubborn man” after taking the national college admission exam 16 consecutive years in an attempt to get accepted to the prestigious Tsinghua University. Tang Shangjun took the gaokao, China’s notoriously difficult college admission exam, in 2009. He scored a mediocre 372 points out of 750, much too low to get into his dream school, Tsinghua University. He was unwilling to compromise, so he spent the next few years studying harder and taking the gaokao. By 2016, his score had improved to a respectable 625 points, more than enough to secure admission to several universities in his home province of Guanxi, but still not good enough for his chosen majors at Tsinghua. So he kept at it, year after year, ignoring all other universities, but never quite reaching the level required to get into his desired faculties at Tsinghua University. Read More »

Friends and family of Class 10 students taking an important exam at a school in Haryana, India were filmed climbing the back wall of the building to pass cheat sheets to their loved ones. The Chandrawati School in Haryana’s Nuh district recently found itself at the center of a massive exam cheating scandal after viral videos of people scaling the wall of the school in order to pass cheat sheets to students found their way on social media. School officials insisted that no cheating occurred during the  Class 10 board exam on Wednesday and that people merely attempted to help their friends and relatives, but some sources claim that these real-life Spider Men only started climbing the school after being given the exact questions on the test and looking up the right answers to them. Read More »

An Indian man was arrested for wearing a police uniform and impersonating a police officer to help his sister cheat on her 12th standard exam. The Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams, a pivotal moment for students across India’s Maharashtra state began on February 21, and we already have a viral cheating scandal. A 24-year-old man entered the Shahbabu Urdu High School in the town of Patur wearing a khaki police officer uniform with a very clear goal – to help one student pass the tough exam by passing her cheat sheets. Anupam Madan Khandare thought he had it all figured out when he got his hands on a realistic police uniform. He planned to infiltrate the examination center under the pretext of supervising the students and give his sister the information needed to pass the exam. Only things didn’t really play out as planned. Read More »

A so-called ‘career exam taker’ in China was investigated by authorities for allegedly acing the world’s toughest university admittance exam three years in a row and reportedly earning $300,000. The Gaokao is a notoriously difficult university entrance exam that many Chinese spend years, sometimes decades to pass. The King of Gaokao, for example, has been trying to get into his dream college for 25 years now, but China’s top schools are just too tough to get into for the vast majority of Gaokao takers. Then there are the lucky few that manage to get into these elite learning institutions, like Peking University or Tsinghua University, and finally, there are the ‘career exam takers,’ who earn high sums of money by acing the world’s toughest university exam year after year. Because the Gaokao is so ridiculously hard to ace, many reputed schools in China offer their students considerable monetary prizes for getting into the country’s top-rated universities. And because there is no limit on how many times a student can take the Gaokao, some exceptionally-gifted individuals get to earn a nice living by simply acing the exam years in a row. Read More »

Over two dozen people taking a national exam that could lead to a career in teaching were caught cheating Bluetooth-enabled flip flops to get an edge over the stiff competition. Cheating has always been a big problem in India, especially during potentially life-changing exams. I remember watching surreal scenes of people climbing the walls of a school building in Bihar to hand cheat sheets to the students taking their year-end exams inside a few years ago, or army applicants forced to take exams in their underwear to prevent cheating. This year, authorities in Rajasthan went as far as cutting the internet connection in the state during the exam to prevent cheating, but they still couldn’t prevent savvy cheaters from trying to get a leg up through nefarious ways. The latest method of cheating reportedly involves Bluetooth-connected flip-flops sold by criminal gangs for up to 600,000 rupees ($8,000) per pair. Read More »

A private college in the Indian state of Karnataka has sparked controversy after photos of its students wearing cardboard boxes during a chemistry exam went viral on social media. After photos of the students wearing cardboard boxes on their heads to prevent cheating started doing the rounds online, regional officials in Karnataka rushed to Bhagat Pre-University College to complain about the “inhumane” treatment of students. Different version of the story started circulating online, including one that claimed the college only turned to cardboard boxes after having repeatedly caught students cheating, despite multiple warnings. Read More »

In an effort to ease the intense pressure that its students face in China’s notoriously rigid exam-based education system, a school in Nanjing has created a “grade bank” that lets students “borrow” grades so that they can pass exams, and then repay them in subsequent tests. Oh man, I wish we had something like this when I was in school, because this system sounds awesome! So here’s how it works: the innovative mark bank allows students to loan marks to make up for a failing grade in any exam. But, just like regular banks, it requires “clients” to pay back the loan on time, with interest. Thus, students have to make up for the loan by scoring extra points in future exams. Some teachers also allow the students to repay the bank by conducting lab experiments or giving public speeches. Pupils who default on their loans are blacklisted by the bank, just like in real life. Read More »