College hopefuls spend six grueling months preparing for the all-important entry exam. Zhang Yangfei reports.

Few people would question the difficulty of preparing for the national college entrance exam, aka the gaokao, but the process can be even more stressful for art students.

Every summer, thousands of candidates in their second year of high school travel to the cities where their dream schools are located, move into art studios and join intensive training courses.

These studios, barely known outside of the art community, are specially set up to prepare students for the art exam. They are like a type of high school, where young people spend six months practicing sketching and coloring.

Living and eating within the facility, the students follow a grueling practice schedule, starting at around 8 am and returning to their dormitories at midnight.

Numbers vary, but hundreds to thousands attend different types of classes. The elite may be selected for some premium sessions, thus enjoying the best teaching resources.

It is not compulsory to train in these expensive studios, which cost an average of 100,000 yuan ($15,697) for the full course. However, it is rare to find students who take the art exam without undergoing this process. The exceptions usually attend art-based high schools.

Wang Jiayi, a second-year student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, trained at an art studio in the capital three years ago. She said the studios systematically teach all the key areas required for the exam, and most of the teachers come from well-known academies.

"If you want to learn at home by yourself and not go to a studio for training, you have to be a genius, plus have very good luck," she said.