Standard Chinese a must for 2012 entrance exam

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.