Xu Xinxia (www.cnr.cn): Every year, Gaokao zhuangyuan receive attention normally reserved for movie stars when examination results are announced. Teachers of these top students are also hailed as heroes, basking in the limelight. It's easy to see why all schools are eager to produce one or two gaokao all-stars, since it can bring them more public attention and is a kind of proof of their high-quality education. Although the education authorities demand that schools act in a low-profile way in terms of zhuangyuan, most of the schools are eager for the benefits of such publicity. Some prestigious universities have even gone so far as rejecting students who are not zhuangyuan of their province or their city.

The hype over gaokao zhuangyuan poses obstacles for quality-oriented education and is harmful to students' psychological health. The media should be responsible for the craziness over test scores, but the local education authorities are also somewhat involved in the event. Therefore, to cool off the hype over zhuangyuan, the media is only partly to be blamed. The education authorities, schools and even students' parents should all realize the harm of their intense pressure and help the students adopt a correct attitude toward the college entrance examination.

Hou Dongyang (Shenzhen Special Zone Daily): The media exposure of gaokao zhuangyuan is an important way for middle schools and colleges to make themselves known by more people. Middle schools that have produced zhuangyuan will be able to attract a large number of excellent students and thereby produce more top students in the future. This virtuous circle will bring to these schools a lot of positive interests. Colleges expect to attract high-caliber students with lucrative scholarships, which have become an important reference for zhuangyuan to decide which school to go. Some training institutions are also joining in the hype over zhuangyuan, featuring them in advertisements to improve these institutions' reputation among younger students. Moreover, students' parents are easily attracted to those middle schools that have produced zhuangyuan and will pay any amount to enroll their children in them.

When zhuangyuan has become something to be consumed, these top scorers themselves tend to treat choosing colleges in a commercial perspective. They rush to choose hot majors in prestigious colleges. Statistics show that the majority of zhuangyuan choose leading universities such as Peking University and Tsinghua University. From 1999 to 2011, these two top universities had recruited 802 top scorers across the country, accounting for 88.23 percent of the total. Most of these students chose popular majors such as economics and trade. This phenomenon is not good for universities' balanced development.

Many gaokao zhuangyuan are products of the exam-oriented education system. It's quite possible that some of these students who do very well in daily study fail to achieve the best result in college entrance examination. Even for top scorers, it's still uncertain whether they will be as excellent in college as they were in middle schools. It's even more uncertain whether they will perform well in their future career.

Excessive hype over gaokao zhuangyuan may make these young students get lost in the face of so much praise. They may become intoxicated in their achievements and emphasize more on their personal interests than on their responsibility to society and the country. The hype over zhuangyuan will not only harm students' psychological health, but also affect the sound development of middle schools and even colleges. Society, including the media, the government and even students' parents, should stop taking advantage of these excellent students for their own personal interests.

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