AS Chinese youths begin to sit the country's annual national college entrance examinations Tuesday (June 7th), some 500 foreign students had already taken entrance exams to Shanghai's Fudan University over the weekend.

The university set up exam venues in Shanghai, Seoul and Singapore.

It was the first time a Chinese university held such exams to enroll overseas students, said Wu Huizhen, director of Fudan's foreign students office.

In the past, foreign students only had to provide their grades of the Chinese proficiency test and high school reports if they wanted to apply for undergraduate studies in China.

Entrance exams for international students were tried in certain schools or departments of prestigious Beijing University, Qinghua University and Fudan University in the past few years.

The students who took the exams to Fudan came from more than 20 countries including South Korea, Japan and Malaysia.

The two-day exams included tests of Chinese, English, maths and the comprehensive capabilities in liberal arts or natural sciences.

According to the general outline of Fudan's Chinese exam, foreign students must have a good understanding of the thoughts of ancient Chinese philosophers like Confucius and Mencius, ancient Chinese poems, famous Chinese literary works and even some noted modern writers.

Every year, more than 10,000 students take the Chinese proficiency test, also called Chinese TOFEL, in some 100 exam venues scattered in more than 30 countries and regions around the world.

The statistics from the Ministry of Education showed there were 86,000 foreign students studying in China in 2004.

Editor: Wing