While suicide rates in China among the young and college-going lag behind those of Japan, the United States, and Russia, test-taking pressure does take its toll. A 2014 Chinese government report looking at seventy-nine cases of suicide among students concluded that over 90 percent were caused by the pressures of China’s test-oriented educational system. Sixty-three percent of the suicides occurred between February and July, when the gaokao and other important exams are held.
