ON a rainy day in April 1978, Wang Zhi, then 31 years old, secured the final book of the 17-volume “Math, Physics and Chemistry Self-Learning Series.”

He had gone to some effort to get the books for the examination in July that year. When the first volume, “Algebra I,” was published in November 1977, he was among hundreds who lined up all night outside a bookstore. He was late for work the next morning at a glass factory.

“Algebra II,” when it was published, was also an immediate sell-out and Wang wasn’t lucky enough to buy a copy. A classmate who did have it agreed to let him copy the whole book by hand. His middle school teacher sent him a copy of “Geometry” and a friend of his father’s loaned him a copy of “Physics.”

“Those books were my only hope for entering college, an opportunity I had dreamed about for 11 years,” Wang, now founder and chief executive of a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, tells Shanghai Daily. “It was like collecting 17 magic balls to make a wish come true. I knew it was my last chance.”

The frenzy for college education came after Deng Xiaoping resumed leadership in July 1977 and restored gaokao, the national college entrance examination, which had been suspended for 10 years during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76).

That political upheaval had resulted in many textbooks being condemned and destroyed. Wang’s 17-volume set of books, which began re-publication in 1977, was the only available reference for exam preparation. Nearly 74 million volumes were sold, but demand still outstripped supply.

In August 1977, Deng convened a 5-day seminar on science and education that was to have a lasting footprint on a generation of young people.

“The seminar was attended by scientists, professors and education specialists,” says Pan Jiluan, a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, who was among the 33 participants. “Our discussions made it clear that we would run out of talent if we continued the ongoing education system. The key to change was the college entrance exam system.”

At the seminar, Professor Zha Quanxing proposed the national exam be restored. Deng immediately agreed. “No more waiting,” the leader said. The whole process took 20 minutes.

The decision came more than a year before the famous Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which embarked on economic reform and the policy of opening China to the world.

The first reinstated national college entrance exam took place in December 1977. Many people, whose education had been abruptly ended with the onset of the “cultural revolution” in 1966, had only a few months to cram for the exam.

The test was hastily compiled and varied in different provinces. Those who applied to be culture and arts majors were tested in four disciplines – mathematics, Chinese, history and geography, and politics. The exam contained lingering traces of “cultural revolution” ideology.

The Chinese portion of the exam, for example, required knowledge of both ancient Chinese texts and poems written by Mao Zedong or Ye Jianying, marshal of the People’s Liberation Army. The writing section of the test in some provinces included topics such as “heart to heart with President Hua Guofeng” and “Is it true that the more knowledge you have, the more reactionary you are?”

Some 5.7 million young people took the 1977 exam and about 270,000 won college placements. The following summer, 6.1 million took the exam and about 400,000 were enrolled.

Among these first university students were Premier Li Keqiang, who was working in a remote village in Anhui Province at the time; Zhang Yimou, the award-winning Chinese film director, who was working in a textile factory; and Tan Dun, the composer of movie scores such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the music for the medals ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He had traveled from Hunan Province to Shanghai to take the test.

For many young people sent to remote villages to work among peasants, the exam was their only ticket home.

“I took the exam because I really wanted to go back to Shanghai,” says He Yanjin, 70, a retired auditor.

At 36, He was among the oldest to take the exam in 1980. At the time, he was working in a village in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China.

A Shanghai native, he had dreamed of returning home ever since his elder brother had passed the national exam for postgraduate in 1978. He was later admitted by the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and spent the following four years in Shanghai. After graduation, he returned to Xinjiang and then went to Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong Province through a talent introducation program.

For He and Wang, who were both older than 30, the exam was both opportunity and risk.

“You probably can’t imagine how excited I was when I first heard the exam would be restored,” Wang recalls. “I was past 30 and married. It was like someone giving me the opportunity for a new life. But I knew preparing for the exam would be very tough.”

When Wang passed the exam and entered the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, he was 10 years older than his youngest classmate and only a year younger than one of his teachers.

“It made me realize how much time had been lost and how I would have to work that much harder than younger classmates,” he recalls.

Luo Liwen, now a retired teacher in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, was teaching at a university in Anhui Province when the flood of new students began. He says a few students were older than him at the time, and the oldest ones were always the hardest-working.

“They were also much better in ancient Chinese texts and poems than I was,” he recalls. “I felt under pressure and realized that I, too, needed to study more.”

Luo had managed to get a university degree during the “cultural revolution” because he was in the class of “worker, peasant or soldier.” Those in that category for at least two years were eligible for college admission if they were recommended by their bosses.

In 1973, an exam was organized for those who were qualified. The applicants included Zhang Tiesheng, who famously answered only three questions on his physics and chemistry test paper, and left the rest blank. On the back of the paper, Zhang wrote a letter addressed to “dear, respectful leaders,” explaining that he did not want to sacrifice precious working time to “construct the country” by studying.

Zhang not only was accepted for college entrance, but he was widely touted as a national hero in state media. His “devotion” made some universities nervous about recruiting applicants with high scores. And so it was during the “cultural revolution.” Educated people were viewed as suspicious or downright seditious.

“It was only after gaokao was reinstated that I felt knowledge and intellectuals were once again respected,” Luo says.