Twice every year, when the CET-4 and CET-6, which stand for College English Test Band 4 and College English Test Band 6 respectively and are sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Education, are held, tension tends to build up in campus.

Scandals are often exposed in the wake of the events, with some officials, teachers, students involved and punished.

China has the largest number of English learners in the world. The CET-4 and CET-6 attract a large number of examinees in the country twice every year.

The popularity of the tests is mainly due to the fact that a vast majority of employers or schools recognize the score, so a graduate who has passed the CET-4 or CET-6 may have an edge over his or her many rivals in the job market.

So cheating in the exams often happens. Examinees buy tips from secret sources or substitutes to take the test for them, or testing aid equipment which can secretly receive radio-transmitted answers to the test.

In some areas, businesses associated with these two exams are thriving, ranging from legal tutoring to the illegal hawking of real or fake tips.

This year, the anti-cheating approaches have been upgraded once again. For example, all test sites are all being monitored on camera in real-time.

And as many as five different test papers are used in the same test room, keeping the examinees in the dark as to which copy they will get until the beginning of the test and making it hard or unable to cheat during the exam.

But as an invigilator of the CET-4 this year myself, I feel just as stressed as those students who attend the exam.

Many college teachers who have to work as invigilators of the CET-4 and CET-6 have complained about the exams.

They cannot earn much from their work but if there is anything wrong, they will be held accountable, perhaps even criminally, because the exams are deemed to be State secrets.

That's why they have tried their utmost to avoid being selected as the supervisors. Invigilators are advised to empty their bladders and bowels before entering the test room, because, like the examinees, invigilators are not allowed to leave the test room till the end of the exam.

We need to downplay the importance of exams, or this craziness will continue. Both teachers and students will be pressed.

Zhang Xiaoyan, teacher of Guangxi Vocational and Technical College of Communications