College entrance examination (l): General Scholastic Ability Test (大學學科能力測驗)

     Today I want to introduce one of the college entrance exam in Taiwan. In fact, there are two college entrance exams in Taiwan. One is "General Scholastic Ability Test(*1)," and the other one is "Advanced Subjects Test(*2)." I focus on the former, and I will talk about the latter next week.

      General Scholastic Ability Test can be traced back to 1994. Before then, there was only one exam, which was called "Joint College Entrance Examination(*3) (abolished in 2002)." General Scholastic Ability Test takes place in every winter vacation, and it's usually before Chinese's New Year. Maybe in order to let students have a good year?

      The advantage of it is that its scope(*4) doesn't include the lesson in senior, so it is easier to prepare. Also, its scoring mode is point sale. It uses the average of top 1% students score to decide the "級距(hard to translate)." So, you may get "15 point" even though you have some mistakes.

      The most important, if one goes smoothly without a hitch during the General Scholastic Ability Test, he/she will have very long summer vacation, which is nearly five months!


*1:General Scholastic Ability Test→大學學科能力測驗
*2:Advanced Subjects Test→大學指定科目考試
*3:Joint College Entrance Examination→大學聯考
*4:scope→範圍