A girl kissed her mother after examination in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province June 7.

Parents waited anxiously outside the examination rooms in in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province June 7.Chinanews, Beijing, June 8 - On the morning of June 7, the first day of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), many parents accompanied their children to exam venues to encourage them."OK, go," said Mr. Ma to his son. However, it had taken him several hours to think about these two simple words, and his mother said the same thing to Ma when he was about to leave home to take the examination years ago.Mr. Ma took part in the NCEE himself in 1977, the first year when the NCEE was restored after a ten-year gap in the notorious “cultural revolution” (1966 - 1976). "At that time, the examination wasn't the focus of the public attention, and none of parents accompanied their children to exam venues that day," said Mr Ma.China's NCEE is the biggest of its kind in the world, with several million candidates taking part every year. In Beijing alone, 125 thousand students will compete in the current examination, and 70% of the lucky ones will be admitted to college.After 30 years, today's parents in China have learned how to control their emotion in a way that will not put a heavy pressure upon their children."It's hard enough for them to face the pressures from both the society and school, thus what we parents can do is only to show our love to them," said a father. "Besides, I firmly believe parents should be responsible for children's failures and mistakes, so it's no use to put any more pressures upon our kids.""Take a deep breath and you can do it, sweet, because you have worked hard enough!" said Zhao to her daughter.Most parents left after the examination began, because "waiting here won't help the children anyway."Though both the media and the government have tried very hard not to make a great deal of fuss about the NCEE, it has still triggered widespread concern, as drivers are asked not to sound the horns and traffic control is exercised around exam venues, even the working hours of construction sites are shortened, to make sure that all the examinees will enter the “arena” in top form and play their best in the examination.