Up to 50,000 students in the capital started a four-day dry run for the gaokao, the national college entrance exam, on Tuesday.

While preparing for the exam is not normally remarkable, what was unusual this time was that all the students were taking the test at home.

"The examination simulates the national university examination to be held in early June," said Xiao Wo, a senior student in Beijing's Chaoyang district.

In the aftermath of the novel coronavirus outbreak, students in Beijing did not return to school in early February as scheduled to start a new term. Instead, they have studied online courses at home.

Schools adopted different measures to hold the tests.

In Xiao's class, the sheets used for answering questions for the Chinese portion of the test were sent to members of a WeChat group so the students could print them in advance.

When the big day came, the students received their electronic Chinese exam questions on WeChat.

When the 150-minute test began, most students had a parent as their supervisor. Afterward, the examinees took photos of the answer sheets or scanned them.

"We were required to send them to our Chinese teacher through WeChat no later than 10 minutes after the exam," Xiao said.

The Chinese teacher forwarded all the photos and scanned test papers to the school, which in turn sent them to the district education bureau, said Li Jie, a teacher at Beijing Hepingjie No 1 Middle School.

Chen Pengyu, a student at Guangqumen High School, entered a live video streaming room via his laptop. All the students at home could see the teacher and then were able to receive their electronic test papers.

Li Zhiwei, principal of the school, said supervisors watched all the test-takers through web cams, which may prove to be an opportunity for a new era in education.

The simulation consists of examinations for compulsory subjects - Chinese, mathematics and English - as well as for three optional subjects.

Starting this year, students in their last year of high school in Beijing have been required to take examinations in three optional subjects on a list of six - physics, chemistry, history, geography, biology and politics.

That means test rooms could have from 1 to 30 test takers, Li said.

"For such a complicated arrangement, it's actually even easier to carry out online," he added.

Similar to the practices adopted in Beijing, many provinces have offered online courses and consultancy for senior high school students to facilitate their preparation for the annual entrance exam, which is usually scheduled in early June.

For the date this year, Weng Tiehui, vice-minister of education, said on Feb 28 that the ministry is closely evaluating the epidemic and its effect on the exam and will publish the schedule in due time.

Xinhua contributed to this story.