The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China

Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li, writing with Claire Cousineau, examine the gaokao: how the exam allocates university places, how it shapes schooling, family spending and migration, and whom it advantages. The research is thorough and quantitative, and the picture is neither the pure meritocracy its defenders describe nor the simple machine of cruelty its critics do.