As a senior student, normally at school, Xiong also has time to rest between classes, before returning home to continue studying.
`I’m very worried. Gaokao or gaokao (university entrance exam) is an important turning point. Educational foundation is very important. Very few people succeed without going to college,` Xiong said.
Senior high school students study for college entrance exams in a field hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, in February.
Every year, millions of high school and vocational school students across China take the college entrance exam.
Students are under so much pressure to pass exams that in 2019, the government had to regulate that parents and teachers should not force students to study too much.
This year’s Gaokao will take place on July 7 and 8, except for Beijing and Hubei province, where Covid-19 originated, two localities have not yet announced the exam date.
While high school students in more than a dozen provinces have returned to school, students in many places such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Hubei, are still waiting to return to school and continue to study online.
Across China, students and teachers are speculating whether postponing exams is beneficial or disadvantageous.
`After the gaokao was postponed, I became even more worried,` Xiong wrote on social network Weibo.
Sharon Li, a senior student in Guangzhou, was relieved to hear that the gaokao was postponed for a month.
`The teacher warned us that now we cannot compare our academic performance with other students, so some people will not feel pressured. However, when we go back to school and take the test, we will realize that we have regressed like
Li started staying up late, some days studying until 2 a.m., enduring mental stress and pressure of grades.
`I can use this extra month to strengthen my weak points. I can even create a miracle, maybe,` Li said.
A teacher teaches online to senior fifth-year students at home in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in February. Photo: China Daily.
But for Li Yongjun, whose daughter Ruoran is studying for exams in Beijing, the postponement means `another month of suffering` for millions of parents like him.
`We’re all tired,` he said.
The gaokao lasts 9 hours, takes place over two days, and includes 4 subjects: Chinese language, mathematics, English and a science (physics, chemistry, biology) or social science subject (politics, history, geography).
Coincidentally, the majority of students taking this year’s exam were born in 2003, when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) hit China.
Covid-19 causes more difficulties than SARS.
Li believes that the fact that she was born a few months before the SARS epidemic and studied for the gaokao during the Covid-19 outbreak made her generation `chosen by God`.
Many other students feel much more mature over the past three months.
`We quickly turned from two carefree children into two young women worried about their futures. I don’t know where the path forward leads,` Xiong expressed.
Hannah