Chinese college students almost unanimously agree that the CET is the most important examination.

So in recent years, various high-tech devices have been used to cheat on the CET exam across the country.

The College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 (CET-4 and CET-6) are national standardized examinations required by the Ministry of Education to evaluate college students' English proficiency.

Although the Ministry of Education does not indicate the status of the exam, most universities peg the exam results to students' graduation and degree certificates.

The CET certificates are also widely accepted by employers as reliable proof of graduates' English proficiency.

During the most recent CET examination, conducted on Saturday, the Examination Authority of Central China's Hubei Province received about 100 reports of cheating, despite repeated warnings issued to students before the examination.

The authority found that students racked their brains to figure out how to use various high-tech devices such as cell phones, interphones and wireless earphones to cheat. Some students were even injured by low quality devices.

According to Chutian Metropolis Daily, a student in Wuhan used a "microearphone" which is 3 mm in diameter to cheat. The earphone is so tiny that it slipped into the student's auditory canal, causing a perforation of the tympanic membrane.

Another student got a set of microearphones stuck in his ears and needed an operation to remove them.

An interphone hidden in a student's abdomen caused bleeding when it exploded.

Examination authorities found more than 100 cheating tools in an examination room at Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuchang Branch in Wuhan. The gadgets included laptops, interphones and microearphones as well as earphones hidden in vests, wallets and waistbands.

Also, the Hubei Examination Authority admitted on Sunday that the answers might have been revealed before the exam, and police are still investigating the case.

School leaders punished

Some school leaders in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province were punished for fraud following this year's college entrance examination.

Li Pengyun and Nie Wenfeng, principal and deputy principal of Yangxian High School, were suspended from work and awaited further punishment after they were found responsible in a cheating case during national annual college entrance examination on June 7 and 8, the local government said at a press conference on Saturday in Yangxian County in southern Shaanxi.

"Further investigation is ongoing, and stern punishment will be given to the persons who are responsible for the case," Sun Jinghu, the county secretary of Chinese Communist Party and head of the case investigation group, said at the press conference.

Four students were caught taking the entrance exam for others, and Li and Nie were found responsible.

(China Daily 06/20/2006 page3)