Starting Friday, local education authorities began releasing results of this year's national college entrance exam, or gaokao.

Provinces of Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, as well as Shanghai and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region are among the first regions to publish the results.

A record of 12.91 million students reportedly took the exam this year, the Ministry of Education said earlier this month.

The exam took place from June 7 to 8 for most of the students this year. It is one of the most important exams for Chinese students as the scores will largely determine which university they can attend and their careers in the future.