A ‘life or death’ question appears in Chinese college exam

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"Who is your teacher?"

This unusual question surprised the students of Sichuan Vocational College of Culture and Communication in southwest China's Chengdu City in Sichuan Province on Monday. The question appeared at the end of their final exam and required students to select the right photo of their teacher and write down the teacher's name.

According to local paper Chengdu Evening News, students who got the right answer would not get any additional score. However, those who answered wrongly would lose 41 points, which meant that they might fail their exams. After the exam was posted online, Chinese netizens called it a “life or death” question.

Sichuan Vocational College of Culture and Communication posted their exam paper on their Weibo account. /Photo via Weibo

Students who took the exam told Chengdu Evening News that they felt nervous about the final question. “I wrote the wrong Chinese character, so I was wondering if I will lose points for it,” said one of the students. “My teacher’s name is too complicated, so I wrote pinyin (Chinese spelling system) for one of the characters,” another student told the paper.

Hu Teng, the examiner, explained his intention of including such a question. “If students attended all the classes on time and listened carefully during class, it is not a problem to get all the right answers,” said Hu. “The reason why I included this question is to test students’ attitudes towards their study.”

This issue also caused a stir on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Netizens held different opinions to the examiner’s decision.

Chinese netizens commented on the examiner's decision on Weibo. /Photo via Weibo

Some netizens supported the examiner, expressing that this is a smart way to assess students’ attitudes towards their academic life. One Weibo user @hhhhyso commented that remembering people’s names is the basic form of respect, which won hundreds of likes.

Others held opposite opinions. “I can’t remember my teacher’s name even if I attended all my classes. The purpose of attending classes is to learn knowledge, instead of remembering a teacher’s name.” said one Weibo user.

University of Electronic Science and Technology 's exam paper was posted on Weibo./ Chengdu Evening News Photo

Jilin Jianzhu University asked students to identify the silhouette of their teacher. /Chengdu Evening News Photo

Apart from this college, some other universities in China had also instituted this kind of questions in exams to test students’ engagement.

For instance, in the online marketing exam of University of Electronic Science and Technology in 2015, students were asked to identity the brand of computer their teacher used during the class. Jilin Jianzhu University made students to identify the silhouette of their teacher from four very similar photos.