Yes, gaming the system is cheating the system. Always taking the shortcut like that Chinese orienteering team disqualified at World Military Games for cheating
Just pick Shanghai??? You are free to choose students from whatever part of China...This PISA test is piece of pizza
You can also check the GRE quant score or the SAT test score to see how average Chinese performs. For Chinese students, not just PISA, but all these kind of tests are nothing... While the Gaokao is the real hardcore battle, especially for student in provinces such as Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hebei, Shangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Henan, etc. etc... These provinces have the highest percentage of high scores in Gaokao...
I am trying to be modest and not to be racist here, but I can't:
Chinese students' academic excellence comes from both inborn talent and hard working:
for the inborn part, it is just like the athletic ability of Africans:
While for the hard working part, this is a typical day of Chinese high-school students, which you party school kids can't even withstand a day...
This kind of exam question very frequently appear in Gaokao, while you people consider it as rocket science:
I don't think you party school kid can even get enough score to be admitted into a vocational school (forget about a college) in any part of China, if you have to take the Gaokao...
And check this guy's group picture or you can go to any professor's group websites to see who are the real brain power for those scientific achievements...
In case you party school kid don't know who is this guy, google 'John B. Goodenough'...