The Fifth Floor: Exam nightmares

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why are exams so stressful? Chinese journalists Wanqing Zhang and Eric Junzhe share personal memories about the infamous Gaokao exam in China, which this year reached a record of 13.42 million applicants; and India correspondent Soutik Biswas reports on the exam scandals threatening the future of millions of young people in India. Plus: why do we have recurring nightmares about exams? Caroline Steel from CrowdScience has the answer. If you also have questions about exams, email them to [email protected].

Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:04.0	This is
0:05.0	You're
0:08.0	You're actually
0:09.0	the fifth floor.
0:10.0	The fifth floor de noosos fifth floor in Newseus.
0:14.0	We see me as well.
0:15.0	To me have this fifth floor
0:17.0	fornak and me disobad.
0:21.0	This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world.
0:29.0	I'm your host, P if your future depends on them. But have you ever
0:41.0	been so happy and relieved to be done with your exam that you ripped up your textbooks and chucked them in a bin afterward?
0:49.0	Well, this sound is familiar to millions of high school students in China.
0:57.0	Every year after their Gowkow, which is a very tough exam to get into university,
1:02.0	millions of students across the country gather in their
1:05.8	classrooms, tear out the pages of their textbooks, and throw them out of windows.
1:11.1	It's a way to really stress and close a chapter. In this episode, I'm taking
1:17.0	you to two countries, India and China, to explore how lives are shaped by exams there.
1:24.0	So let's start with the Chinese Gowkow,
1:27.0	which is the annual national undergraduate admission exam of China.
1:32.0	It's taken at the end of high school and it lasts
1:36.0	nine hours over two or sometimes even three days. It determines whether or not you can go to
	...

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