Chinese authorities have exposed some of the 007-style gadgets that students have been caught using to try and cheat their way through tough university entrance exams.

Security staff in Jinlin, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces have revealed students are using sophisticated radio vests in order to receive help from someone outside the hall.

Pupils take pictures of the tests using a button-hole camera hidden in a pen or watch, then use a copper antenna loop stitched into their clothing to beam it out of the hall to someone sitting with a receiver.

_{Students take pictures of test papers and questions using button-hole cameras hidden in pens (pictured, camera circled) which are then sent to someone outside the hall using an antenna}

_{Police display receiver equipment used by somebody outside the exam hall to pick up the pictures. That person then looks up the answer, before reading it back to the student}

The helper then looks up the answer to the question, and relays it back to a mobile phone hidden on the pupil in the exam hall.The speech is picked up via the mobile, then sent on to a hidden earpiece.

Police in Hubei, Shandong and Hebei provinces have busted a number of suspected criminal groups helping senior year students to cheat on the National Higher Education Entrance Examination.

The exam, known as the ‘gaokao’, takes place on June 7 and 8 this year, and will be taken by 9.5million children hoping to get into universities across the country.

Education is highly valued in China, with many parents sending their children miles each day just to go to school, and many are afraid they will be harshly punished for failure.

‘Education and police authorities will continue to investigate crimes including stealing and selling examination papers, leaking information to exam sitters, providing equipment designed for cheating, and cyber attacks on exam websites,’ said an education department spokesman

_{The mobile is connected to a hidden earpiece which allows the pupil to listen to the answer without attracting attention from exam invigilators}

_{The whole kit can be concealed inside something as small as a vest, with the antenna stitched into the neckband and everything else tucked into pockets or down trousers}

_{Authorities in China say they have rumbled criminal gangs manufacturing these systems for students. They favour cheap mobile handsets as they are easier to dismantle and then rebuilt including the antenna and earpiece}

He warned that cheating students would be stripped of the enrollment qualification for a period ranging from one to three years. Parents involved will also be seriously punished.

Earlier this week it was revealed how one Chinese school has become a place of pilgrimage for anxious parents and children who come to pray there.

The school has an outstanding academic record, which has led to superstitions among locals that praying there will help pupils pass exams.

The school also has a huge ‘tree of knowledge’ that stands inside the grounds, which people think has magical powers to make children excel in tests.

_{Another, slightly more sophisticated, system sees the camera hidden in a watch (bottom left) which then transmits wirelessly to a receiver (in the box) with a person feeding answers back through and earpiece (right, in the small white box)}

_{Exam invigilators have now been equipped with radio signal detectors and hand wands they can use to scan students during tests to see if they are broadcasting data to someone outside the hall}

_{A much less sophisticated system has pupils writing on their hands with ultraviolet pens, then using a tiny black-light hidden in a different pen to reveal the answers in the exam hall}

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