Each year thousands and millions Chinese senior high school students have to prepare for the university entrance examination (UEE) for their aspiration for higher education. This preparation learning lasts almost one year, with a great amount of learning content, difficult problems, complicated tasks, and fierce competition. During this period, they have to meet lots of challenges, such as, adjusting or maintaining their interest for learning, improving learning strategies, adapting to the learning environment, alleviating test anxiety, etc. All these activities require active self-regulation. - Whether students' exam preparation is a self-regulation process? - If this were the case, how students self-regulate in exam preparation? - What components are involved in students' exam preparation? - What are the relationships among the components? - What are the determinants of effective self-regulation in exam preparation in respect to achievement in the exam? - Are there any individual differences in exam preparation between gifted and non-gifted students? Are these differences influence students' self- regulation and academic achievement? - Are there any gender differences in exam preparation? - Whether the current self- regulated learning theory is enough to study exam preparation?