BEIJING, July 3, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of students who survived China's devastating earthquake started Thursday three-day make-or-break college entry exams, with many confined to makeshift classrooms, state media said.

Helicopters flew in test papers in some places as a total of 120,000 students in southwest Sichuan and neighbouring Gansu provinces began what are arguably the most important exams of their lives, Xinhua news agency said.

The choppers were drafted in as roads to some test venues were blocked or threatened by post-quake landslides, it said.

China's annual examination ritual -- which shapes the working lives of many students -- took place in other parts of the country from June 7-9, but students in the quake-zone were given an extra month to prepare.

Many of the students, most who are around 18 years old, lost family members, school friends and homes in the May 12 quake, the China Daily said.

Some were so traumatised they needed psychological counselling to overcome fears of taking exams in prefabricated test rooms, it said.

An estimated 7,000 school buildings were demolished in the earthquake and around 9,000 pupils and teachers killed.

The magnitude-8.0 earthquake, the most devastating in China in three decades, left nearly 88,000 dead or missing and up to five million people homeless.