Photo taken on April 23, 2016 shows candidates entering the exam room in Jinan, east China’s Shandong province. Local civil servant exams were held in twenty-five provinces of China on April 23, 2016, and over 140 thousand candidates have registered for provincial civil servant exams. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Anhui Provinces have all denied the alleged leak of the provincial civil service exam and said the exams followed compliance procedures.

Some suspect the training institutions are fabricating their stories as the institution's test papers were almost the same as those used in the civil service exam. One famous education and training institution who is suspected of leaking the test paper said it is impossible that they leaked the exam because they have no chance of accessing the papers. They added that the civil service exam is kept absolutely secret.

The human resources department of east China's Jiangxi Province said on Saturday that it has started investigating the alleged leak of the provincial civil service exam.

The annual exams kicked off on Saturday in several provinces across China including Jiangxi. However, some people posted on their social network accounts suggesting the exam information might have been leaked because the questions were the same as on their practice materials.

In addition, a few people were spotted distributing the answers for the tests outside the exams after the first test in the morning concluded.

As the exam is conducted jointly, several provinces are involved.

Meanwhile Anhui Province announced on April 25, 2016 that 31 candidates were found to have cheated in the 2015 national entrance exam for postgraduate study. The Education Department of Anhui Province said that 25 candidates have had their subject scores canceled because of alleged cheating, while 6 candidates had their scores in one subject canceled.

China's revised criminal laws shows zero-tolerance to exam-related misconduct and has defined cheating on major national exams as a criminal crime.

People found guilty of cheating face up to seven years in jail.