The ban of the bra with metallic clasps as part of measures to prevent students from cheating in the just concluded national entrance examination in China drew flack from official media that said such stern steps were "misguided".
Over nine million high school students across China took the exams on Friday and Saturday. It is the national college entrance exams, or Gao kao, the sole determinant for admission to virtually all Chinese universities and colleges.
Each year the exam attracts media with novel methods by students to cheat or by officials to prevent fraud.
This year, girls students in northeastern JilinProvince were barred from wearing metallic bra clasps as it could be detected by metal detectors.
"The machines won't even forgive the tiny clasps in girls' bras. In fact, female students are best advised to wear undershirts instead so that when they pass through security, no 'zizi' sound is made,' state-run Global Times said.
"Security ban on bras for gao kao rather misguided," the report said.
Each year, cheating scandals during gaokao irritate the Chinese public, already shocked by the increasingly sophisticated methods being used, it said adding that the common tactic was using look-alikes to write the exams.
Another method was students would be fitted with tiny earpieces so that someone outside the exam site could transmit the answers by cellphone.
In 2008, it was reported that some girls in JiangsuProvince even took mini-cameras inside their bras so they could transmit images of the exam paper to people waiting elsewhere to provide the answers.
