When I was in high school and had to take the SAT, which is America's standardized test for university aspirants, the rules were simple: No calculators, no talking. In 1984, there wasn't much chance of anyone smuggling a cell phone into the test, and certainly not an undetected one given that what cell phones existed then were suitcase sized.

Here in China, both mobile phones and academic testing are a big deal. The university placement test (高考 or gaokao), is taken by about eight million students a year in early June, and is the biggest test of all, thanks to its ability to determine a student's academic and thus professional future. It is a time of notorious sweats, high anxiety, occasional suicides, and hundreds of newspaper articles chronicling the woes of China's suffering students.

Hit the books, not the buttons.

Technology has been an issue for the test. China's Web portals have entire sites devoted to the test, with hints and information. Questions leak out every year (do a Chinese Google or Baidu image search for "高考" and see how many images of mathematical formulae come up). And, of course, problems have arisen from mobile phones being brought into the testing centers. In text message-mad China, mobile phones in college entrance exams seem like an invitation to trouble, and that's exactly what they have been. Cheating rings based around text messaging have been busted by the authorities in recent years.

There have been various attempts to control mobile phone cheating in the test centers. Given that your average Chinese youth would sooner die than be separated from his or her mobile phone, the solutions have mostly involved telling students to switch off phones and dangling the threat of severe punishment over their heads. But technological problems beget technological solutions, and last March the Shanghai Dailyreported that some cheat-prone cities would experiment with mobile phone jamming systems in test centers.

However, technological solutions in turn beget controversy. The Beijing Morning Post reported over the weekend that the Beijing Education Examinations Authority will not use mobile phone jammers due to suspicions that the electromagnetic radiation they pump out might scramble students' brains. Among other parts. Really.

"Radiation generated by the shielding instruments may impair brain cells, crystalline lens [sic] and man's reproductive system," Tang Tai, an engineer with the Qinghua (Tsinghua) University, said.

"It's irresponsible for educational departments to apply the technology in exams disregarding the side effects on those who are taking the exams," said Tang who has repeatedly called for a ban on using shielding technology in this sense.

So keep an eye on those Beijing results this year and see if they're conspicuously better than those of Chinese cities. Personally I think it is safe to assume that constant mobile phone use has probably either immunized the entire population of urban Chinese youth against further damage from electromagnetic radiation, or fried them already.

More on the gaokao in an article here.