Abstract: From Michael Young to Michael Sandel，the meritocratic trap has remained a significant public and academic issue that has sparked ongoing debates. Fundamentally，the meritocracy trap，with the potential to disrupt social harmony and shared prosperity，represents a form of individualistic attribution bias，which conceals one’s family background and luck behind the formula of“ability+effort=success”. Consequently，the meritocracy trap creates arrogance among the elites and resentment among the underclass in Western societies，and ultimately leads to social fragmentation. This study aims to reveal the different manifestations of the meritocracy trap in China by examining Chinese students’ attribution towards the country’s unique form of meritocracy—gaokao. With the help of a qualitative research design，we conducted a comparative analysis of the intuitive attribution schemas used by two groups：urban students from elite universities vs rural students from second-tier universities，in attributing their own and each other’s success or failure. The study identifies a phenomenon called “upper-lower distinction”（上下有别），indicating that the structural degree of individual attribution depends on the relative social positions between the self and the attribution target. This partially supports the theoretical hypothesis of the meritocracy trap，but the unique Chinese culture of modesty somewhat mitigates the arrogance of the elites. More crucially，the study reveals a concept，termed “ascribed-desert”（先赋应得），is shared by both groups. It consists of a few Chinese cultural notions，including the Taoist concept of “naturalness”，consequentialism，and “ethical standard”. The idea holds that talent and pedigree，viewed as uncontrollable elements，should be considered as neutral or even legitimate. The notion of “ascribed-desert”，unlike the desert-less principle in John Rawls’s theory of justice，is the conceptual basis upon which the Chinese meritocracy trap rests. It forms a strong functional relationship with the Chinese meritocracy trap，buffering it from possible social consequences similar to those in the West. However，it also conceals deeper cultural pitfalls. The main contribution of this study is to advance the theoretical discussion related to the meritocracy trap with Chinese particularity.

Key words: meritocracy, “upper-lower distinction”, “ascribed-desert”, educational inequality