Two handicapped Chinese teenagers have won acclaim for their success in the country's college entrance exam.

Peng Chao, a 19-year-old armless candidate in southwest China's Sichuan Province, scored 538 of a possible 750 points in this exam, held in early June.

A resident of Panzhihua City, Peng lost his arms at the age of six when he suffered an electric shock. He managed to answer the exam papers with a pen clasped in the toes of his right foot.

Peng said he could not write as fast as other examinees and had no time to answer some questions in the math exam. He said he wanted to choose civil engineering as his major.

Meanwhile, visually impaired candidate Zhang Yaodong scored 558. The 18-year-old from northwest China's Gansu Province suffers from a congenital eye disorder. He is blind in one eye and the other has phototonus.

The exam, known as "gaokao," attracted nearly 9.4 million participants to compete for 6.98 million places in universities and colleges this year in China.

Zhang was among three blind students to sit the exam. He is reported to be the first blind person in decades to pass it, and can now apply for undergraduate study in major universities.

The other two were one person from Shanghai and Li Jinsheng, a 46-year-old masseur, who took the exam in Braille in central China's Henan Province, but handed in two blank papers and completed only a very small portion of two other exams even though his time was extended by up to 40 minutes.

Zhang took the tests in a special classroom. His sheets were printed in large characters, but he still needed a magnifier.

He said he dreams of becoming a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and has applied to Southern Medical University in south China's Guangzhou.

But he is not sure whether the university he selects will accept him or not. "If no university recruits me, I will learn traditional Chinese medicine by myself," he told reporters.

On its Twitter-like microblogging Weibo account,the Gansu provincial education department recommended Zhang to Southern Medical University on Tuesday.

He can not only recite the names of articles in ancient Chinese medical books, but can also make diagnoses by feeling a person's pulse, according to the department's post, which expressed hope that the university can help Zhang realize his dream.

Chinese netizens have expressed admiration for the exam performance of the handicapped candidates.

"God shuts one window but will always open another for you. Good luck to you!" wrote a netizen with the screen name "yonghu3772679153."

"We really admire you a lot in our hearts for your hard efforts," said "feihanling."

"Is there anything which can offer more positive energy than them?" asked "shangshanxiaomai 1983."

Zhang and Li's success has become a leading topic on Chinese news portals. A microblog about Peng on the Weibo account of the People's Daily has been forwarded nearly 5,000 times and garnered 1,800 comments as of Wednesday afternoon.

Their performance served as a sharp contrast to the recently exposed cheating scandals in Henan, in which more than 100 applicants attempted to find substitutes to sit the exam for them.