On Monday the Chinese authorities denied reports that the national civil servant recruitment examinations had been leaked. They said such reports were "misleading" and "extremely irresponsible".

The exams, one an administrative aptitude test and the other an essay, were held on Saturday across China. More than half a million sat the exam in the hope of securing a government position. On average 42 people are competing for every available post. 

A number of online articles claiming that certain questions had been dropped from the exam have led to rising suspicions that there’d been a leak.

The Western China City News reported Monday that an article was posted on a test website (www.ksgov.cn) last Thursday suggesting examinees pay attention to the social security problems of farmers deprived of land in preparation for the essay test. On Sunday the website posted another article hailing the "correct" guess.

The Ministry of Personnel said in a statement that the so-called "correct predictions" differed greatly from the test's questions.

The essay test which lasted 110 minutes on Saturday consisted of five questions, mainly on the sustainable use of China's land resources.

The ministry said the test papers were confidential documents before exam day and the setting, printing, delivery, safekeeping and use of the papers followed strict procedures.

"Investigations show that test questions of the 2007 national civil servant recruitment examination were not disclosed," said the ministry. They said the exam results would be released by the end of December.

Since 1994 China has organized 13 civil servant recruitment examinations for central authority departments and their regional units. 

This year more than 1.16 million people applied to sit the exams and 530,000 were deemed qualified to take them. They are competing for 12,700 government jobs.

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2006)