CHANGSHA - Over 1,000 students taking the national college entrance examination (NCEE) in Central China's Hunan province were forced to leave their examination rooms early as the timekeeper read the time wrong.

Bell rang five minutes earlier than the scheduled time on Friday morning in the No.9 High School in Dongkou county, forcing 1,080 test-takers to hand in their papers on compositive test early, said an official with the provincial educational examination authority on Saturday.

An NCEE compositive test in China usually means a capacity test integrating history, politics and geography in liberal arts, or physics, chemistry and biology in science.

Because of the time cut, some students failed to complete their answer sheet, said the official.

Parents and students gathered on campus after the test, requiring response from government authorities.

The official said they would investigate the case and penalize relevant people responsible for the incident, but he also said a make-up test is "impossible."

The NCEE, also known as "gaokao" in Chinese, is regarded as a destiny-shaping event for high schoolers. About 9.15 million people in China registered to take the exam on Thursday and Friday to vie for 6.85 million vacancies in the country's universities and colleges, according to the Ministry of Education.