Recalling his freshman year at university, Guo Li said he kind of wasted it.

"I failed to meet the expectations I had for myself in the gaokao and enrolled in a not-so-good university in Tianjin," said Guo, 31, who took his first Test of English as a Foreign Language in 2003. "I was very disappointed about the situation and didn't know what to do. I had no plans for my future."

His situation changed when he visited old friends who studied at Tsinghua University during the summer break. Instead of traveling, his friends were taking classes at training institutions for tests like the Graduate Record Examinations and the English exam.