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It’s time our exams caught up with the future
When it comes to exams, let’s stop pretending that AI doesn’t exist. Instead, test students on how well they can use it.
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Understandably, large-scale exams must uphold fairness and objectivity. Yet fairness must also evolve.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Looi Chee Kit and Wong Lung Hsiang
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Every June in China, nearly 13 million students sit the gaokao, a high-stakes college entrance exam often dubbed the “most competitive exam in the world”. In 2025, however, something unusual happened: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools vanished during the exam, and it was on purpose.
Major Chinese tech companies like ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent all voluntarily disabled or restricted their AI services during the exam period. AI chatbot tools refused to answer questions related to the exam syllabus, image recognition functions were suspended and, in some cases, entire services went offline.
