Anti-spy devices designed to combat cheating will be used during the national postgraduate recruitment examinations this weekend, say the Beijing Education Examination Authority.

 

Telecommunication signal detectors will be used to identify wireless earphones that are as small as a grain of rice, the authority said.

 

Exam cheats have been known to evade detection by placing earphones deep inside their ears to receive signals from cell phones which transmit answers to questions from sources outside the examination halls. A signal receiver costs as much as 2,500 yuan (about US320).

 

Officials with the authority also confirmed all electronic equipment such as mobile phones and MP3 players are banned from examination rooms at 73 centers in Beijing.

 

Any examinee found with banned electronic devices would be considered to have violated test rules and severely punished, officials with the authority said. They didn't specify the nature of the punishment.

 

Over 90,000 people will take the two-day graduate recruitment exams in Beijing. It's one of China's key examinations. Nationwide over 1.28 million students will sit the exam and about 25 percent of them will secure immediate employment.

 

In recent years a string of cheating scandals, including test paper leaks and surrogate exam-takers, have plagued the system in China. The Ministry of Education has warned students against buying fake exam papers sold over the Internet or via e-mail and text message ahead of the postgraduate recruitment exam.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2007)