‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!’

Exam fever: Students arriving for the first day of the ‘gaokao’, in Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu province. Millions of students sat for the notoriously tough exam yesterday, the first since the country lifted zero-Covid rules that forced classes online for months on end. — AFP

What does the National College Entrance Exam, or gaokao, mean to the Chinese people? Everyone has his or her own answer.

For Liang Shi, it is the only way to realise his dream of becoming a college student, Bandao Metropolis Daily reported.