Making the most of every opportunity

Unlike hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, Chen Chaoyi never worried about school entrance examinations.

The 23-year-old Shanghai native graduated from Fudan University in 2011, and quickly found a good job.

"Nearly all of my friends from primary school stayed with me till high school," Chen said, adding that about 25 percent moved on after high school. "They may have had alternatives, such as transferring to better schools or going to study overseas," he said, adding that one or two of his primary school classmates were among those who dropped out.

About 80 percent of his high school classmates ended up at well-respected universities, with dozens going to prestigious establishments such as Fudan and Shanghai Jiaotong, and a few even making it to Peking and Tsinghua universities, China's best schools.

Chen had never attended an evening class before his last year in high school, but at around 40 minutes each, the sessions weren't arduous.

In addition to the gaokao, the national university entrance exam, Chen took a test organized by Fudan University in Shanghai after the first semester of his last year in high school.

"The exam was taken mostly by Shanghai students at that time. Thousands of us took the exam and they admitted 500," Chen said. Those who were admitted to Fudan gained preferential treatment in the gaokao: "We were admitted even if we recorded poor results." In the event, he scored 520 points out of a possible 630 in the gaokao, but was still dissatisfied.

"I studied halfheartedly during the second semester of the last year (in high school)," he said, adding that to gain admission to Fudan, his classmates from other provinces usually had to be among the top 100 in the gaokao.

The Fudan exam was tough, and included questions on Chinese literature, math, English, history, geography, political science, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science. "I'd thought my knowledge base was wide, but I still found it very difficult," Chen said.

Chen is from a middle-class family, and his parents often took him traveling when he was a child.

"Extensive reading and traveling have widened my horizons, and better prepared me for exams such as that," he said.