Real Gaokao Exam Questions in English: A 2026 Math Paper

Many English articles about the Gaokao talk about the pressure. The pressure is real. But I wanted to show the questions. What does a Gaokao math paper look like? Can a student outside China solve it?

So I chose the 2026 Shanghai math paper. I translated all 21 questions into English and put them online. People outside China can now try the questions in a browser. This is my independent English version. It is not an official government publication.

2026 Shanghai Gaokao math exam questions in English

What is in the 2026 Shanghai Gaokao math paper?

The paper has 21 questions worth 150 points. Students have 120 minutes. It has single-choice questions, multiple-answer questions, numerical answers and longer written problems. China does not use one Gaokao paper in every region and every year.

On GaokaoExam.org, you can try one random question, three questions in 10 minutes, or the full-paper preview. If you only want to see some real Gaokao questions, start with the short test.

Gaokao students are not ranked together across China

Some people outside China may think all Gaokao students have one national ranking. It does not work like this.

For university admission, students are usually ranked inside the admission system of their province, autonomous region or municipality. Universities also publish how many students they plan to take from each place. A student in Guangdong mainly competes for the university places given to Guangdong.

For example, suppose Tsinghua University and Peking University plan to take 100 students from Guangdong. A Guangdong student cares about the ranking in Guangdong. The student does not need to be in a national top 100 list.

Of course, Guangdong top 100 does not mean the student can surely enter these two universities. Different subjects, programs and application choices also matter. I use this example only to explain the basic idea.

Source: The Ministry of Education's 2026 Gaokao guidance asks students to check the enrollment plan and score distribution published by their own province. Its 2026 university admissions notice also talks about province-level enrollment plans.

Why I checked all 21 English translations

When I started the translation, I thought the math symbols would be the hard part. They were not. The hard part was the wording. One word can change the meaning: choose one answer, choose several answers, or write a proof.

I used two machine review rounds first. Then I checked all 21 questions with the Chinese paper by myself. For every question, I kept the source, the Chinese text, the English translation, the review status and the scoring information. This work was slow, but I wanted to know where every sentence came from.

I let the website check objective answers. I do not let it give a final grade to a written proof. A written proof still needs human review.

One question and a full paper are different

Trying one question is interesting, but it is not the same as taking the full paper. Question 21 feels very different after you have already worked for 90 minutes. So I also kept the 120-minute mode.

The full-paper mode is still marked as a preview. I reviewed the paper and the English wording, but it is not an official English Gaokao paper. The answer key is not official either.

Try real Gaokao math questions in English

If you want to see the questions, you can try real Gaokao math questions in English on GaokaoExam.org. Start with one question. If it feels easy, try the full paper with the timer.

If you find an English sentence that looks wrong, please send me the paper name and question number. I will check the Chinese source again.

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