The results of China’s notoriously onerous college entrance exams earlier this month are coming out. according to Sohu, the 9.4 million students who took the exam this year now have a new way to look up results: using Alipay or WeChat Pay as a portal.
The college entrance exam in China is widely – though not necessarily reasonably – believed to be an event upon which one’s whole life hinge. Chinese people call it “thousands of horses crossing a log” because the admission rate of first-tier universities falls below 25%. If you fail, your parents and society may view you as a loser.
In the past, exam candidates had to either log on to a specific web page or make phone calls to know the results. When millions of people are doing the same thing at the same time, the large traffic would not let anyone get what they want.
The situation might be different now. This year, Alipay, with 270 million users, allows students in 29 provincial-level administrative regions to look up exam results via “Yijianchafen” or “one click for the results” on the Alipay app. Examinees can “book” the check by inputting their name, mobile phone number, ID card number, exam registration number and examinee number, so that Alipay will remind the user the moment the results come out. After the results have come out, examinees can look up the results at any time.
In addition, Alipay provides the reference of the admission scores required by over 2,000 universities and colleges in previous years.
Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan have not yet been included in the service.
WeChat Pay with 400 million users, on the other hand, has not made an announcement like Alipay, though a button on similar services can be found in its “urban services” section. Although this portal is currently accessible to only a couple of places, students can follow the WeChat official account of their local education department where the exam results are also available.
Some people, on the other hand, might not not be in such a hurry to find out the scores which might “ruin” their life.
(Top photo from vimeo.com)