高考(gāo kǎo) - the university entrance exam (gaokao) in Mandarin

高考 (gāokǎo) is the gaokao, China's national university entrance exam. The name is short for 普通高等学校招生全国统一考试, "the unified national exam for admission to ordinary institutions of higher education", but nobody says that in full: 高 (gāo) means "high, higher" and 考 (kǎo) means "to test", so 高考 collapses to "higher-education exam".

It is sat once a year, usually in June, by every 高三 (gāosān) student, the final year of senior secondary school, and the result largely decides which 大学 (dàxué, from da4-xue2) a learner can attend. Because so much rides on a single sitting, 高考 carries a cultural weight that "A-levels" or "finals" do not quite match in English: families reorganise their whole year around it, and 压力 (yālì, from ya1-li4), pressure, is the word that comes up constantly in the same breath.

An English speaker translating AQA-style vocabulary lists sometimes renders 高考 as "A-levels", but that flattens something specific: it is one exam sat on fixed dates nationwide, not a modular set of subject exams spread over months, so it is worth explaining rather than just substituting the nearest British equivalent.