Most international learners will never sit the gaokao for real; foreign nationals usually enter Chinese universities by a different route. But working through gaokao material is a demanding and rewarding way to build Chinese, maths and science skills, and to understand what Chinese students go through. This plan assumes about an hour on weekdays and a longer session at weekends.
Months 1–2: diagnose and orient. Read the overview guides on the 3+1+2 system and the paper structures. Try a few questions in every subject on the practice pages without worrying about your score. Pick the subjects you will focus on — for most learners, mathematics, English and one or two sciences or humanities — and note which are limited by language rather than content.
Months 3–6: build the foundation. Work subject by subject, a topic at a time, using the subject practice sets. Keep every wrong answer in the mistake notebook and review it weekly. Use the glossary to build Chinese exam vocabulary in parallel, adding a small number of new terms each day with spaced repetition rather than long lists at the weekend.
Months 7–9: mix and speed up. Switch from single-topic practice to mixed practice, which forces you to recognise what kind of question you are facing before you solve it. Start timing yourself. Use your progress page to identify the two or three weakest topics and give them a dedicated week each.
Months 10–11: full papers. Sit a full mock exam roughly every two weeks per main subject, under honest conditions: no notes, no calculator, a strict clock. Spend at least as long reviewing a mock as sitting it. The mistakes you make under time pressure are different from the ones you make at leisure, and they are the ones worth fixing.
Month 12: consolidate. No new topics. Revisit the mistake notebook, re-do old questions you got wrong, and finish with one last full paper per subject. If your goal is an HSK exam, a university entrance test or a scholarship application, schedule them shortly after this month while your skills are at their peak.
Throughout the year, protect consistency over intensity. A daily practice set done every day beats a heroic weekend once a month. And if you fall behind, cut scope rather than sleep: drop a subject, not the habit.