China / Society

Standard Chinese a must for 2012 entrance exam

By Luo Wangshu (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2012-05-18 19:47

Test takers will have to stick with standard Chinese to answer the coming college entrance examination and avoid modern Internet slang or ancient scripts, according to the Ministry of Education.

A few students have used traditional Chinese in the exam in previous years, especially in the Chinese writing test.

Jiangsu student Wang Yunfei wrote his composition in parallel style - a traditional Chinese poem genre - and was admitted by Dongnan University for outstanding talent of writing.

Huang Ling, a student from Sichuan province, even used oracle bone inscriptions - one of the world's oldest writing systems from the Shang Dynasty (16th century-11th century BC) - when taking the exam in 2009, which aroused attention nationwide. He was later admitted to Sichuan University as a special case though his total score failed to reach the admission standard.

"I'd rather my students avoid taking the risk and answer questions in a safe way," said Zhang Ting, a Chinese teacher at a Beijing magnet high school in Dongcheng district.

Zhang said that the exam aims to check students' general knowledge and is not a chance to show differences.

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