A 23-year-old student who was caught cheating on the self-study higher education examination was given a year's suspended prison sentence for illegally obtaining State secrets after buying answers to the exam, the Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing announced on Monday.

 It is the first such case reported in Beijing in which an exam cheat was convicted of stealing State secrets under the country's criminal law, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

According to a statement from the court, the student surnamed Wang, who was enrolled in off-campus, self-study courses, responded to an online advertisement offering the answers to the exam. Wang spent 500 yuan ($80) on a set of answers to the English exam.

Wang passed the exam with a good score, but the online vendor she bought the answers from was later denounced by other students in the chat room and detained by police.

"The court found the vendor obtained the exam papers in advance and worked out the answers," Liu Qiqi, a staffer with the publicity department of the court, told the Global Times, adding that exam papers are considered State secrets.

Considering that Wang did not spread the answers to others, the court sentenced her to a year in prison with a two year reprieve. Her laptop was also confiscated as the court deemed it to be a tool used to commit the crime.

In 2009, 21 people were also jailed for illegally obtaining State secrets after helping students cheat on the national college entrance examinations.

Zhang Hui contributed to this story