A robot is being designed to compete with 12th graders during the college entrance examination in 2017 and get a score qualifying it to enter first-class universities in China, according to Huaxi Metropolis Daily.

An interactive robot named Jiajia, who looks very much like a real woman, is unveiled by the University of Science and Techonology of China in Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province, April 15, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua]

The robot will sit three exams, namely math, Chinese and a comprehensive test of liberal arts, which includes history, politics and geography, said Lin Hui, CEO of an artificial intelligence company in Chengdu. The company won the bid for the artificial intelligence program on the robot's math test from the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2015.

Like the other examinees, the robot will have to finish the exams during designated periods. Unlike the usual scene that sees 30 students sit in an exam room, the robot will take its exams in a closed room without anyone else present, except for proctors and a notary.

According to Lin, the robot will be linked to a printer before every exam, and the electronic examination paper will be put into the robot's program when the examination begins. The robot will be totally disconnected from the internet and will solve the problems with its artificial intelligence program. Finally the answers will be outputted through the printer.

It's believed that Chinese and a comprehensive test of liberal arts, rather than maths, will pose challenges to the robot, since questions in maths are objective with specific answers, while in the other test subjects, there are some subjective questions, such as the reading comprehension and essay-writing.

Lin said that the robot writing technique nowadays has been increasingly mature. With key information words, a robot can write an economic news report following the widely-accepted writing mode in Silicon Valley, while nobody could tell it was written by a robot, Li said.

From this point of view, the robot can analyze the topic of the writing session and complete writing. Though the essay may turn out to be an emotionless piece, that slightly affects the grade.

The robot is actually a touchstone for artificial intelligence development and the key technology of the robot lies in understanding language and reasoning, according to Fu Hongguang, who is in charge of the research and development of the artificial intelligence program required in the math test.

The robot is reportedly trying to qualify for admission to Peking University and Tsinghua University in 2020, and its counterpart in Japan is eyeing Tokyo University in 2020.

The robot is just one example of the boom in artificial intelligence after Google's AlphaGo beat a world-class player in the ancient board game Go in March.

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