The Ministry of Justice is being asked by hundreds of students in Shanghai, who sat this year's National Judicial Exam, to explain results they feel are suspicious. The ministry set the questions.  

The students, most of whom failed the exam, have formed an "examinee rights protection alliance" and sent letters to the ministry seeking an explanation.

"We just want some reasonable and convincing explanations as all of us have devoted so much to the exam," said the organizer of the group. She refused to provide her name as she has to take the exam again next year.

Passing the exam, which was introduced in 2002, is the only legal qualification required to become a lawyer, prosecutor or judge in China.

It consists of four separate papers, each of which is worth 150 marks, with the top possible score being 600. Anyone scoring 360 marks or more passes and is awarded a professional license by the Ministry of Justice.

The first three are multiple choice papers and marked by machine. The fourth is an essay marked in the traditional manner. 

The angry students say they found many examinees, who barely passed the exam, had done poorly on the multiple choice papers but scored exceptionally well on the essay.

According to the test results in Hunan Province, which is one of four provinces that published all student scores on the Internet, 314 examinees passed with total scores between 360 and 370 while earning more than 100 points for the essay. They accounted for about one-third of the 1,103 who passed the exam in Hunan.

"Previous years' experience tells us that 100 is a very high score that rarely appears. As the first three papers are basics for the last part how could someone with poor basic knowledge suddenly earn such a high score on a harder section?" asked Li Yao, who quit his job to prepare for the exam which he failed.

Officials with the Shanghai judicial exam office said they'd received dozens of calls from students questioning the exam's transparency and fairness since the results were released on November 22.

An official with the Ministry of Justice was cited by the Oriental Morning Post as saying the phenomenon was due to some students outperforming themselves. Ministry officials were not available for comment yesterday.

(Shanghai Daily December 4, 2006)