Gaokao (Digital Subjects)

Key Topics to Master:

• Modern text reading, including informational and literary passages
• Classical Chinese reading, translation and sentence parsing
• Classical poetry appreciation and required recitation passages
• Language application: idiom use, sentence correction, rhetoric and coherence
• The long composition, written to a supplied prompt or material
• Time management across a 150-minute paper where the composition must not be reached with 20 minutes left

Key Topics to Master:

• Functions and derivatives, including monotonicity, extrema and inequality proofs
• Sequences and series
• Trigonometry and solving triangles
• Analytic geometry: lines, circles and conic sections
• Solid geometry and spatial vectors
• Probability and statistics, including distributions and hypothesis-style reasoning

Key Topics to Master:

• Listening comprehension, delivered by computer in Beijing and Guangdong
• Reading comprehension across informational and narrative texts
• Cloze and grammar in context
• Writing tasks including applied and continuation writing
• Vocabulary breadth across the syllabus word list
• Speaking, where the province examines it, as in Beijing and Guangdong

Key Topics to Master:

• Physics: mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, optics and modern physics
• Physics: experimental design, measurement and error analysis
• History: Chinese and world history across the syllabus periods
• History: source analysis and evidence-based argument
• The programme restriction attached to the choice, since many science and engineering degrees require Physics
• The ranking consequence, since first-choice subject determines the ranking pool

Key Topics to Master:

• Chemistry: structure, reaction principles, organic chemistry and experiment
• Biology: molecules and cells, heredity and evolution, homeostasis, ecology
• Geography: physical processes, human geography, regional development
• Politics: economics, political systems, philosophy and culture
• Cohort awareness, since your converted mark depends on everyone else who chose that subject
• The 30-mark floor, which changes the calculation on whether to attempt or abandon a hard paper

Key Topics to Master:

• The same four-subject menu as the first re-selected subject
• Programme requirements published by universities, which often specify chemistry for medicine and related fields
• Subject combination strategy, since the converted mark is relative rather than absolute
• Score review rights, noting that Inner Mongolia provides only the converted mark for review, not the raw mark
• Balancing an easy subject with a weak cohort against a hard subject with a strong one
• Consistency of preparation across both re-selected subjects, since each carries the same 100 marks

• 1Write out your six subjects with their mark totals: 150, 150, 150, 100, 100, 100, and confirm which four are counted raw and which two are grade-converted.
• 2Read your own province's examination authority notice for the current year, since timings, listening treatment and fees are set provincially.
• 3Sit one full past paper in each of Chinese and Mathematics under real timing, 150 and 120 minutes.
• 4Convert your practice totals into a position using last year's published one-point-one-rank table for your province rather than judging by the raw number.
• 5Identify which single subject holds the largest mark gap between your current score and your target.

• 1Work functions and derivatives end to end: monotonicity, extrema, tangents and derivative-based inequality proofs.
• 2Cover sequences and series, including recurrence and summation techniques.
• 3Do 40 timed multiple-choice and fill-in items to build the speed the front of the paper demands.
• 4Write full solution steps for every extended problem, since method marks are the difference between a 4 and an 8 on a long question.
• 5Log every error as concept gap, computational slip or misread condition, and count how many marks each category cost.

• 1Cover analytic geometry: lines, circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas.
• 2Cover solid geometry with spatial vectors, and practise setting up coordinates quickly.
• 3Cover probability and statistics, including distributions and expectation.
• 4Sit a second full 120-minute Mathematics paper and check whether you reached the final extended question with time to work it.
• 5Rework every extended question you abandoned, untimed, until the method is automatic.

• 1Work modern text reading across both informational and literary passages, tracking how the mark scheme rewards evidence from the text.
• 2Drill classical Chinese: translation, function words, and sentence parsing.
• 3Revise required recitation passages to full accuracy, since these are the cheapest marks in the paper.
• 4Practise poetry appreciation questions with a fixed structure so you are not inventing an approach under time pressure.
• 5Time the reading sections so that the composition is always reached with at least 50 minutes remaining.

• 1Write three full compositions to real prompts under timed conditions.
• 2Build a bank of examples and arguments you can adapt rather than inventing material at the desk.
• 3Drill language application: idioms, sentence correction, coherence and rhetoric.
• 4Have a teacher mark at least one composition against the actual criteria rather than self-assessing.
• 5Sit a full 150-minute Chinese paper and check the composition was written, not rushed.

• 1If you are in Beijing, prepare for the computer-delivered listening and speaking test specifically, since the 2026 sittings fell on 13 December 2025 and 21 March 2026 and the better of the two counts out of 50.
• 2If you are in Guangdong, prepare for the March computer-based listening and speaking test, marked out of 60 raw and divided by three for the 20 marks that join the 130-mark written paper.
• 3Practise on a computer with a headset and microphone rather than on paper, because the interface itself costs marks the first time you meet it.
• 4Confirm from your province's notice whether listening counts into the total, as it will in Henan from 2027, or is passed to universities for reference, as in Shanxi.
• 5Do 30 minutes of listening practice every day for the rest of the plan.

• 1Work reading comprehension across informational and narrative texts under timed conditions.
• 2Drill cloze and grammar in context, which reward pattern recognition more than rule recitation.
• 3Write applied and continuation writing tasks to the published length and format.
• 4Build a vocabulary routine using spaced retrieval rather than list rereading.
• 5Sit a full 120-minute foreign language paper including listening.

• 1For Physics, cover mechanics and electromagnetism first, since they carry the extended calculation questions.
• 2For Physics, drill experimental questions: apparatus, measurement, error sources and data handling.
• 3For History, work through the syllabus periods systematically and build a timeline you can reproduce from memory.
• 4For History, practise source analysis with attention to provenance, purpose and reliability.
• 5Sit a full 75-minute paper and remember that this subject is counted at raw marks, so every mark is worth exactly one mark.

• 1Cover the highest-yield blocks of your first re-selected subject from the provincial syllabus.
• 2Study the grade conversion table until you can state it from memory: 15, 35, 35, 13 and 2 percent mapped onto 100 to 86, 85 to 71, 70 to 56, 55 to 41 and 40 to 30.
• 3Understand that your converted mark is relative, so improving means beating other candidates in that subject rather than hitting an absolute raw score.
• 4Sit a full 75-minute past paper under timed conditions.
• 5Attempt every question, because the conversion floor is 30 and abandoning a paper cannot take you below it but leaving marks on the table can cost a grade band.

• 1Cover the highest-yield blocks of your second re-selected subject on the same basis.
• 2Check which universities and programmes you are targeting require a specific re-selected subject, since many medical and science programmes require chemistry.
• 3Sit a full 75-minute past paper and mark it against the official scheme.
• 4Compare your ranking in both re-selected subjects, since the weaker cohort may convert a lower raw mark into a higher grade band.
• 5Rework every question you got wrong in both subjects.

• 1Run the full 615 minutes across three days in the real order and at the real times, not compressed into one weekend.
• 2Mark every paper against the official scheme and convert the two re-selected subjects using the published grade bands.
• 3Total your marks out of 750 and convert to a position using the most recent one-point-one-rank table for your province.
• 4Compare that position to the batch admission control lines your province published last year.
• 5List the three specific question types that cost the most marks across the whole simulation.

• 1Take the three question types from week 11 and do ten examples of each from different years.
• 2Rebuild the weakest single subject from the syllabus rather than from summary notes.
• 3Redo every extended Mathematics question and every physics or history long question you failed twice.
• 4Keep one untouched past paper per subject in reserve for the final week.
• 5Re-check the conversion arithmetic on your two re-selected subjects so you know exactly what a grade band is worth in total marks.

• 1Run a second full six-subject simulation and compare directly with week 11.
• 2Confirm your examination centre, session times and admission documents against your province's notice.
• 3Check that nothing you plan to carry is on the prohibited list, since the Ministry of Education upgraded smart security gates for 2026 specifically to detect phones and smart glasses.
• 4If you are a candidate with a disability, confirm your accommodation is in place; the Ministry of Education provided reasonable accommodations for more than 14,000 candidates with disabilities in 2026 and produced braille papers for blind candidates.
• 5Fix your sleep to the examination schedule, since Chinese starts on the morning of 7 June.

• 1Sit the reserved untouched paper only for the two subjects with the largest remaining gap.
• 2Switch to retrieval: recitation passages, formulae, timelines and reaction mechanisms from a blank page.
• 3Read your error log end to end twice rather than starting anything new.
• 4Rehearse the pacing rule of roughly 49 seconds per mark so it is automatic before the first paper.
• 5Prepare documents and permitted materials the night before each paper and leave everything else at home.