Gaokao高考

Overview

The Gaokao (普通高等学校招生全国统一考试, the National Unified Examination for Admission to Regular Higher Education Institutions) is mainland China's national examination for entry to full-time undergraduate and associate-degree programmes. It is organised under the Ministry of Education, with each province's own education examination authority handling registration, test-centre arrangements, marking logistics and admission for candidates registered in that province. It is held once a year, mainly for students completing senior secondary (high) school. For 2026, the Ministry of Education reported about 12.9 million candidates registered nationwide, around 450,000 fewer than the year before.

Who can apply

To register, a candidate must be a citizen of the People's Republic of China who abides by the Constitution and the law, must have graduated from senior secondary school or hold an equivalent qualification, and must meet the physical-condition requirements set for the programmes they apply to. Candidates who are already enrolled in a full-time higher-education programme, senior-secondary students who have not reached their graduating year, and candidates currently serving a ban from national education examinations for exam-related violations may not register.

Candidates generally register in the province where their household registration (户籍) is held, following that province's own timetable and procedure. Children of migrant workers who have completed their senior secondary education in another province may register there instead, under rules that each province publishes separately.

Exam pattern

Every candidate nationwide sits three compulsory subjects, each marked on its raw score:

Beyond these three, the subjects a candidate sits depend on which "new Gaokao" (新高考) reform model their home province has adopted. Provinces rolled out the reform in batches from 2014 onward, and two different models exist side by side today.

"3+3" model

Used in the first reform provinces — Shanghai and Zhejiang (launched 2014, first examined 2017) — and later in Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong and Hainan (launched 2017, first examined 2020). Besides the three compulsory subjects, a candidate freely picks any 3 of 6 elective subjects, with no fixed combination required:

"3+1+2" model

Used in later reform batches, including provinces such as Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and Chongqing, and extended further to provinces including Heilongjiang, Gansu, Jilin, Anhui, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Guangxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ningxia and Qinghai. Besides the three compulsory subjects, a candidate picks exactly 1 "first elective" subject and 2 "re-elective" subjects:

In both models the exam is held over multiple days and is overwhelmingly a written, paper-based test; most provinces running either model work to a 750-point total across the compulsory and elective subjects together.

Marking and results

In the "3+1+2" model, the three compulsory subjects and the "1" first-elective subject are marked and counted on their raw ("original") score. The two "2" re-elective subjects are instead converted onto a common scale based on each candidate's percentile standing among everyone who sat that same subject that year, so that results from different subject combinations can be compared fairly when ranked together; this converted score, not the raw mark, is what counts toward the candidate's total.

Each candidate's total score — compulsory subjects plus their chosen elective subjects — is combined into a single aggregate figure. Provincial education examination authorities rank these aggregate scores against that year's admission plan to set minimum cutoff lines (省控线/批次线) for each admission batch, such as the early batch for military, public-security, arts and sports institutions, the undergraduate batch, and the vocational/associate-degree batch. Within a batch, candidates' electronic files are then forwarded to institutions under a "parallel-choice" (平行志愿) mechanism, which follows the principle of ranking by score first and then matching candidates to their listed preferences in order.

Important dates

For 2026, the Ministry of Education confirmed the national unified exam is held on 7–8 June nationwide: Chinese language on the morning of 7 June, Mathematics on the afternoon of 7 June, and Foreign Language on the afternoon of 8 June. In provinces that have implemented the Gaokao reform, candidates additionally sit their chosen elective-subject papers on 9 June 2026, with some provinces extending into 10 June as well; each province publishes its own detailed subject-by-subject timetable.

Registration for the 2026 cycle closed with about 12.9 million candidates enrolled nationwide, as the Ministry of Education announced on 3 June 2026.

After the exam

Once the exam ends, provincial education examination authorities mark the papers, compute each candidate's combined score (applying the percentile conversion to "2" re-elective subjects where the "3+1+2" model applies), and publish that province's minimum cutoff lines for each admission batch. Candidates then submit their college and major preferences online within the window their province sets, after which institutions draw on the ranked candidate pool under the parallel-choice mechanism to finalise offers.

Preparation tips

Because the "2" re-elective subjects under the "3+1+2" model are scored by percentile standing rather than raw marks, a candidate's result in these subjects depends on how the whole cohort sitting that subject performs, not only on their own raw score — a useful factor to weigh when choosing a subject combination.

Since the reform model, elective-subject list, exam-day count and total-score structure all vary by province, confirm the exact pattern that applies with your own provincial education examination authority rather than assuming the pattern used in another province.