Ruixue Jia, Hongbin Li, and Claire Cousineau. The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2025. ISBN: 9780674295391 (Hardcover), 9780674301849 (eBook)
This review assesses the first book-length, data-driven account of China’s gaokao written for a general audience, by two of the leading economists of the Chinese education system and a writer. The review argues that while the authors frame the gaokao as a “centralized hierarchical tournament,” their own evidence supports a stronger characterization: the exam is a totalizing social institution in the Maussian sense, simultaneously organizing family behavior, state governance, and national economic strategy into a single rhythm. The review traces the book’s three-part structure – family, state, and society – and highlights its core empirical achievement: using quasi-experimental methods and large-scale administrative data to definitively debunk the fairness narrative surrounding the gaokao, showing how regional quotas and the hukou system structurally advantage urban students long before the exam begins. Two lines of critique are then developed. First, the review questions the book’s treatment of the university experience itself: the gaokao produces globally competitive high school graduates whose advantages demonstrably stagnate upon university entry, suggesting the tournament is optimized for selection rather than for learning. Second, and more broadly, the review argues that the tournament logic the authors identify in education is not unique to schooling but mirrors the same centralized, scale-rewarding incentive structures documented in China’s industrial economy – making the gaokao the educational manifestation of a specific political economy rather than an anomaly within it. The review concludes that The Highest Exam is a landmark contribution whose relevance extends well beyond China studies, offering educators and policymakers worldwide an indispensable guide to understanding the students, the anxieties, and the definition of merit that the gaokao produces.