More than 83 percent of university entrance examination candidates will realize their dream of entering a university this year, an increase of 5 percent on last year, as a result of easier exams and fewer participants, said an official with the Beijing Education Examination Authority.

Some 80,000 students sat this year's gaokao, or college entrance exam, in Beijing and universities will admit 83.99 percent. The enrollment rate for science students will reach a record high of 91.92 percent while 69.05 percent of liberal arts students will be enrolled, said Zang Tiejun, vice-director of the authority.

He attributes the high enrollment to easier exams and fewer participants, and said the average scores for Chinese and mathematics were 10 points higher than last year.

However, he said that this year's English exam was more difficult than last year. Fill in the blank questions were included in the English exam for the first time and the listening speed required was faster.

"The purpose of increasing the degree of difficulty of the English exam is in line with the policy to develop Beijing into a world city," he said.

Over 600 marks, out of a possible 750, is regarded as a high grade. This year 5,107 students surpassed this mark, 707 more than last year. There were 782 students of liberal arts and 4,325 science students. The minimum score to enroll in an undergraduate course is 439 for liberal arts subjects and 401 for science subjects.

Wang Hao, a high school graduate from Dayu Middle School, in Mentougou district was very disappointed at his score. He got 520 points.

"English, as well as combined science, were harder than I expected," he said. "I thought I would get 250 points for combined science, but I only received 220," he said.

He was planning to go to Korea for the summer holiday.

"But I won't go because of the bad score," he added.

Examinations are always accompanied by cheating and the make-or-break gaokao is no exception.

Twenty-one students were caught cheating at this year's exam, 23 less than last year.

Since April to the end of the exam, educational authorities together with the public security department monitored and deleted 31,000 messages related to gaokao cheating on the Internet.