New Delhi: Liang Shi, a 56-year-old self-made millionaire from China, is determined to pass the country’s most difficult Gaokao College Entrance Exam. He took the Gaokao, a yearly exam for admission to all undergraduate institutions in mainland China, for the 27th time on Wednesday. Liang Xi dreams of studying at Sichuan University, one of China’s top universities. To achieve his goal, he needs a high score on the Gaokao, which is attempted by about 13 million high school seniors every year.
He studies for 12 hours every day. Liang, who started his own successful building materials business after working in a factory, said he has been living a simple life for the past few months. He spends 12 hours a day reading books. Why does he want to study? He told AFP news agency, “I feel uneasy that I didn’t get a college education. I really want to go to university and become an intellectual.”
The Gaokao College Entrance Exam can change anyone’s destiny. But it is hard for Liang to compete with 13 million students. “I feel uneasy that I didn’t get a college education. I really want to go to university and become an intellectual,” he told Agence France-Presse news agency.
The local media calls him ‘The Gaokao Holdout’. Liang first sat for the exam in 1983, when he was just 16 years old. He continued to attempt to improve his score for the next 10 years – until he had to stop in 1992, as the test then was only open to unmarried people under 25 years old.
When those limits were removed in 2001, Liang’s ambition for a prestigious college education was revived.
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He has since taken the gaokao 16 more times, including every year since 2010 – even when strict zero-Covid measures made taking the exam harder than usual. Online, some have doubted whether his apparent fixation is just a publicity stunt. “For what?” Liang replied. “No sane person would spend decades taking the gaokao for a stunt.”
He said he will celebrate with his friends after the exams end this weekend. “I am going to play Mahjong with my friends for three days and three nights,” Shi added.