China's annual national college entrance exam began on Monday with 9.57 million students nationwide sitting the exam this year.

In the earthquake zone in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, 1,023 high school graduates sat the exam Monday.

An emergency response plan involving the armed police had been drawn up to ensure safety in Yushu prefecture, said Wang Yubo, director of the Qinghai Provincial Education Bureau.

A total of 2,499 moderate and minor earthquakes had jolted Yushu, Qinghai Province, since it was devastated by a 7.1-magnitude quake on April 14, the Qinghai earthquake administration said on Friday.

Wang said Qinghai province had more than 36,000 students sitting in national college entrace exam this year. The province has set up 1,318 exam sites. Except the Yushu Prefecture, most of its exam sites have been electronically monitored to further ensure the exam integrity.

Dai Jiagan, director of exam center under the Ministry of Education, said the safety of this year's national college entrance exam was a serious challenged, after a series of earthquakes and extreme weather in many parts of the country recently.

Local construction departments should work with education authorities to work out emergency response plans, said Dai.

An earthquake measuring 4.6 degrees on the Richter scale jolted Yangqu County of Taiyuan city, in northern China's Shanxi Province, on Saturday, local government has made special arrangements to ensure a smooth exam.

After receiving a forecast of heavy rain, Henan Provincial education authorities also worked out an emergency plan.

In northeast China's Jilin Province, more than 160,000 students attended the national exam in 6,107 locations. After a cheating scandal last year in Songyuan city, the province invested heavily in electronic monitoring systems and dispatched more than 1,200 discipline inspection cadres to inspect and supervise the exam.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education showed that 9.57 million high school students had registered to sit this year's exam, down 650,000 from last year. Chinese universities plan to recruit 6.57 million students. The average recruitment rate is seven percentage points up from last year.