First-year students at the Shanghai's eight top universities are being asked to take part in a nationwide psychological test to help schools create personal psychological records for each student and take steps to help those showing warning signs.

This is the largest such test ever carried out in the country.

Nearly 50,000 locals will be asked to take the test, which contains 900 multiple choices. While the test is theoretically voluntary and students won't be punished for not taking it, most of the schools won't advertise that fact to ensure as many students as possible to take part, university officials said.

The complete results will be sent to Beijing for analysis once the testing is finished on October 30.

The outcome will be sent to school officials next month, and the individual universities are responsible for taking measures to help students whose tests show warning signs.

"Precaution tests taken when students enter university could help us have a clear idea of their psychological development and pay special attention to those showing danger signals," said Chen Zengtang, secretary-general of the Shanghai Psychological Counseling Association of Higher Learning.

The tests are one measure to try to protect students from classmates with psychological problems, such as Ma Jiajue, he said.

Ma, an undergraduate student at Yunnan University who killed four of his classmates in his dorm in February, was found to suffer from serious psychological problems.

Similar tests have already been adopted by a few local universities since 1998, but the new nationally unified test is more thorough, according to Xiao Yongchun, Fudan University's psychological consulting official.

A citywide survey earlier this year indicated that 0.5 percent of local university students have psychological problems and need some sort of crisis intervention.

(Shanghai Daily October 16, 2004)