" On 20 July an article appeared in the People's Daily about a 'blank exam paper." Unable to answer the questions in his university entrance papers, an applicant had handed in a blank sheet, along with a letter complaining that the exams were tantamount to a 'capitalist restoration."  His letter was seized on by Mao's nephew and personal aide.  Mme Mao and her cohorts condemned the emphasis on academic standards as 'bourgeois dictatorship."
"What does it matter even if the whole country becomes illiterate?" they declared. "What matters is that the Cultural Revolution achieves the greatest triumph!"
The exams I had taken were declared void.  Entrance to universities was now to be decided solely by 'political behavior. "

― Jung Chang , Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China