It is a story that does not lack the basic ingredients to capture the public eye.

First, it involves sex; second, it is a straightforward yet sensational scandal between a 20-something female university graduate and an ageing professor.

Add to that all the pressure on students that comes with the National College Entrance Examination, which is becoming increasingly competitive in recent years. It is also true of graduate school entrance exams at a time when many university graduates try to continue their studies after a tight job market has turned them away.

A female student from Beijing Jiaotong University revealed several days ago to the Beijing News, that before the graduate entrance examination in 2005, she had acquired two sets of examination papers and their answers from a professor who is in charge and with whom she is acquainted.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The 26-year-old student said she paid in kind by having sex with the professor, an allegation the professor has denied.

She passed the two exams, in different subjects, with flying colours but still was not admitted to the graduate studies programme because of her poor English marks.

According to media reports, both the university and police are investigating the case.

The event itself reveals something may be wrong with our graduate entrance examination mechanism, to be exact, in the design of the exam paper.

Besides English and politics exam papers, which are designed by education ministry, exam papers in other subjects required in graduate entrance examinations are designed by universities themselves, who then assemble relevant faculties to do the job. Usually, a professor will be chosen to work out a whole paper in his field of research or teaching.

Such an arrangement gives those in charge of designing the exams a chance to indulge in improper activities.

It appears this is exactly the case with the Jiaotong University allegation.

Such papers are classified as national-grade documents before the test date, so any leaks of the exams before they are administered would be dealt with by relevant laws.

Although this kind of legal deterrent would certainly restrain many from wrongdoing, it has its limitations because if such persons were really engaged in such sex- or money-for-answers dealings on only an individual basis, in which both parties get what they want, it would be hard to unearth the truth if they themselves never divulge their business.

In this case, if the female student had passed the English part of the test and been admitted into graduate school, would she disclose such matters publicly, assuming her motivation to make public this episode was her failure to be admitted?

According to her disclosure to the media, the student confessed that because she felt hurt that the professor failed to help her be admitted she decided to make their deal public.

Even though this news was fed to a tabloid, it raises a serious issue: how to revise the current policy on designing exams in order to plug the loopholes.

Here is one suggestion: How about introducing a test-designing team in which every member contributes exam questions to form a database from which these questions would be randomly selected to form a whole exam paper, thus greatly reducing the risk of leaks?

Relying on people's moral discipline or a legal deterrent alone is not enough. The prevention method by plugging the system's loopholes, always works better.

(China Daily 06/11/2005 page4)