‘Be fearless, this is the start of your bright future’: Stephen Hawking to China’s 9 million students taking entrance exams

British scientist Stephen Hawking, who has a huge following on China’s social media, has sent his best wishes to more than nine million mainland students who will start taking their university entrance examinations on Tuesday.

“As many of you prepare to take the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, I want to wish you, the next generation of scientific minds, success in your academic endeavours,” Hawking said in a post on his Weibo account on Monday.

Results of the national exam, commonly known as gaokao, generate a score for each candidate, which will determine whether a high school graduate can enter a college or university. The higher the score, the better the university.

The gaokao, which lasts three days, assesses a student’s proficiency in various disciplines, such as Chinese language, mathematics, English and physics for future science-based studies, and the political dogma of the Chinese Communist Party for those who will pursue studies in social science.

“This culmination of your hard work marks just the beginning of your very bright futures,” added Hawking, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge.

However, the “hard work” might not all be academic endeavours.