I don't think the math part of the Gaokao tests memorization.
Looking at a sample paper (https://medium.com/@yujia_jo/2016-jiangsu-gaokao-national-hi...), it seems like the examination really tests for the ability to do math and problem solve under fairly heavy time pressure (150 minutes total for all questions if you are in the science stream).
This honestly looks perfectly reasonable to me. It's obviously far harder than the SAT math section (which isn't saying much since SAT math is a bit of a joke), but the questions look completely fair and not at all like they're trying to trick or screw the student.
Makes the comment upthread that started this come across as just more racist prejudices about China, unless the commenter has something to back up their claim.
Yeah the SAT and the GRE suffer from the same problem - they’re meant to be taken by everyone, so the math is made basic and the non-STEM folks aren’t penalized when looking at total score.
Completely agree regarding the Gaokao sample. This all looks like it should be well within the means of a high school senior.
Looking at the first 10 problems, the only thing that really required memorization for me was trying to remember how to define the foci of a hyperbola and ellipse (questions 3 and 10), which I've long forgotten since high school. Everything else was pretty simple.
I would say the questions by themselves don't test memorization but all the circumstances around the test push it towards memorization.
Given decent fundamentals you can solve all these problems from first principles but you would take way too much time (unless you are a genius, of course). To solve these problems within the allotted time would require grinding a ton of problems so you can get familiar with a part of or the full question beforehand. Don't get me wrong, practicing problems is a good way to study math and I don't have any issue with this in a vacuum.
However, this is before bringing other people into the equation. The floor is raised every year and the competition is intense. You also need to study for other subjects, not just math. All in all, "memorization" became the only strategy. It's fair to debate whether it's "rote memorization" or actually "learning the material" but with how much the students study the line between the two blurs. It feels too "overfitting" if I would borrow a statistics word.
