1. Gaokao (高考). Short for the National College Entrance Examination. Despite the name, there is no single national paper: several national papers are used alongside papers set by individual provinces. 2. Zhongkao (中考). The senior high school entrance exam taken at around fifteen. It is often confused with the gaokao but is a separate and earlier exam.
3. Zhuangyuan (状元). The top scorer in a province or subject group, borrowed from the title of the top candidate in the imperial examinations. The Ministry of Education has repeatedly told schools and media not to publicise or hype top scorers, so 'zhuangyuan' rankings are no longer officially promoted.
4. Yiben and erben (一本, 二本). First- and second-tier admission batches. They describe when universities admit, not a formal quality ranking, and many provinces have merged them into a single undergraduate batch under the reformed gaokao.
5. 985 and 211. The names of two government funding programmes for universities, not rankings. They have been succeeded by the Double First-Class initiative (双一流), though both labels are still used in everyday speech and job advertisements.
6. Fenshuxian (分数线). Literally 'score line', but it can mean either the provincial batch cutoff or a specific university's admission cutoff for that year. These are very different numbers. 7. Zhiyuan (志愿). Often translated as 'wish', it actually means the formal ranked list of university and major choices a student submits after results.
8. Weici (位次). A candidate's rank in the province. For admissions it is more useful than the raw score, because difficulty changes from year to year. 9. Fufen (赋分). The converted score given for some elective subjects under the reformed gaokao, based on how a candidate ranks among others taking that subject in the province. It is not the raw mark.
10. Jiafen (加分). Bonus points added to the gaokao score for certain categories of student. Many bonus categories, such as those for sports and arts competitions, were cut back or abolished in the national reforms of the mid-2010s, and those that remain are tightly limited. Old articles describing generous bonus points are often out of date.
Like most gaokao details, the exact meaning of some terms varies by province and year. The site's glossary page gives short definitions of these and many more, with the Chinese characters alongside.