Common Exam Failure Reasons for Students | Generated by AI
Here are the most common reasons why students (especially Chinese/international students) repeatedly fail or get low scores on the Chinese Gaokao, GRE, TOEFL, or American SAT. The reasons overlap a lot across all four exams, but some are more specific to certain tests.
| Exam | Most Common Failure Reasons (Ranked roughly by frequency) |
|---|---|
| Gaokao (Chinese University Entrance Exam) | 1. Extreme pressure and anxiety → blank out or silly mistakes 2. Weak foundation in one or two subjects (especially math or Chinese literature) from high school 3. Poor time management in the ultra-long papers 4. Over-reliance on rote memorization but weak at flexible application questions that appeared more after 2018–2025 reforms 5. Health/sleep collapse in the final month or on the exam day |
| GRE | 1. Extremely large and “weird” academic vocabulary (95 % of Chinese test-takers’ biggest obstacle) 2. Running out of time in Verbal (Text Completion + Reading) because of slow reading speed 3. Weak logical/critical reasoning trained in Chinese education system 4. Quant is usually fine or perfect for Chinese students, but occasional careless mistakes on easy questions because of over-confidence 5. Taking the test too many times → burnout and declining scores |
| TOEFL | 1. Speaking: strong Chinese accent + very short response time (15–30 sec prep) → low fluency score 2. Writing: cannot type fast enough in English (many Chinese students type <30 wpm) + poor logical structure 3. Listening: lectures are fast and contain academic vocabulary they never studied 4. Reading passages are long and time pressure is severe after the 2023 shorter format (still many fail to finish) 5. Never practiced the exact integrated tasks (speak/write based on reading+listening) |
| SAT / Digital SAT | 1. Evidence-based Reading: cannot finish the reading sections on time (same root problem as GRE/TOEFL) 2. Vocabulary in context is still harder for non-native speakers even after College Board removed obscure words 3. Math “no calculator” section or tricky word problems that require real English comprehension 4. Took the paper SAT before 2024 and couldn’t adapt to the new digital adaptive format 5. Over-preparation on grammar rules but weak at actual reading speed and comprehension |
Cross-cutting reasons that appear in almost all failures
- English reading speed is too slow (biggest single predictor of low GRE Verbal, TOEFL, and SAT scores for Chinese students)
- Exam anxiety and psychological pressure (especially bad for Gaokao and for students who “must” get 1500+ SAT or 330+ GRE)
- Wrong learning method: endless question grinding without fixing root causes (vocabulary, speed, logic)
- Never did full-length timed practice under real exam conditions
- Poor sleep, diet, or exercise in the final 1–2 months
- Started preparation too late (common for GRE/TOEFL done senior year or after graduation)
If you want to succeed on any of these exams as a Chinese/international student, the brutal truth order of priority is usually:
- Build real English academic reading speed and vocabulary (for GRE/TOEFL/SAT)
- Master the exact question types and timing
- Fix mental game and anxiety
Everything else is secondary.
Which specific exam are you or your friends struggling with? I can give much more targeted advice.