Chapter 245: The Autumn Examination

Time passed by like a flash, and it was late July in a blink of an eye. It was less than half a month before the autumn examination was about to take place.

Scholars from various prefectures flocked to Hangzhou, and the inns and hotels in the provincial capital increased their prices several times, but they were still full of no matter where they are near and far. In this way, many candidates had to stay in their residential houses, and of course the price was only expensive but not cheap.

When you walk on the street, you will see scholars wearing square scarves and straight clothes. If you don’t speak official words, you will be embarrassed to speak. For a moment, the city is full of words, sour and jealous.

The cultural conference held at this time was naturally much larger in scale. Some old seniors who had achieved extremely high rankings came to the stage to teach at the invitation of the governor and the students. The number of scholars who listened to the lectures was as many as the predecessors, which was spectacular.

Of course, this is not a time to talk about the meaning of the minor meaning. This kind of literary association is actually a place for those who have experienced it to teach their experience to candidates. From how to prepare for the exam to the experience and experience during the exam, it is a popular topic among candidates.

Discussion on the content of the exam is naturally the top priority of the literary association. Compared with the Tongsheng exam, the annual exam, the academic exam, the provincial exam, and the examination subjects have greatly expanded. Many candidates who participated in the provincial exam for the first time often cannot adapt to the intensity of the exam, and their physical and mental collapse. Since then, they have been talking nonsense and have no Chinese hope for life.

Therefore, before the exam, you must fully understand the subjects and forms of the exam and make complete preparations. The exam lasts for nine days, with three games in total, each game three days. The first game on the ninth day of the eighth month, the second game on the twelfth, and the third game on the fifteenth.

The first test is the meaning of the "Four Books" and three paths, each with more than 200 words. The "Five Classics" has four paths, each with more than 300 words. If you can't finish answering, you are allowed to reduce one path, but don't expect a good ranking.

The second trial discussion is one path, with more than three hundred words. Five judgments, edicts, expressions, internal and subjects.

The third test of the classics, history, strategy, and more than 300 words. If you fail, you will be allowed to reduce the two paths.

Obviously, the first Four Books and Five Classics was to test the candidates' familiarity and understanding of Confucian classics. The second was to examine students' ability to judge right and wrong and write various official documents. The third was to examine students' knowledge of political affairs in ancient and modern times.

This set of examination content and regulations have been used since the reopening of the subject in Hongwu in the 17th year of Hongwu. If the examiners can strictly treat the three test papers and comprehensively examine the students, most of the selected juren are educated, knowledgeable and capable administrative talents. In order to avoid selecting literary scholars, Emperor Taizu also canceled the "test poems" that both the Tang and Song dynasties attach great importance to, and made it clear that only rely on the application of literature and not the poetry and song test. It can be seen that when Emperor Taizu and Liu Bowen formulated the imperial examination rules, they really wanted to select real practical talents for the country.

But unfortunately, this is almost impossible in the actual marking process. Because the marking of the provincial examination papers is famous for its short time and heavy tasks, and even the gods and man cannot complete the work with quality and quantity.

The Ming Dynasty law stipulates that from the end of the twelfth day of August, the examiner will draw the room and divide the papers, and then the rooms will start to mark the papers separately. The admission time shall not be later than the end of August, and it will be only ten days before the start of the marking. After deducting the intermediate banquet and chatting, the actual marking time will be only three or four days.

In addition, the two examiners did not directly approve the papers. They only checked the test papers recommended by the six examiners and decided to take them or not. Therefore, all the test papers were pressed on several examiners. This was barely competent in the early Ming Dynasty, because after years of war, the population had dropped sharply and there were even fewer scholars. For example, in the fourth year of Hongwu, only more than 1,200 people took the Zhejiang provincial examination, and today, this number has reached more than 4,000.

Moreover, the workload of marking papers is not only determined by the number of test papers, but also depends on the number of answers to the test papers. On average, students have to answer more than 2,200 words in the first session, 3,500 words in the second session, and more than 3,000 words in the third session, totaling nearly 1,000 words in the three sessions.

The important task of marking papers with more than 40 million words is all on several examiners. For these test papers, they must carefully consider the words and must not finish the exams in a glance like the Tongsheng exam and the scientific exam.

Because the provincial examination is a national talent ceremony, the candidate who wins the imperial examination is qualified to be an official, and the importance of mentioning the degree of national rise and fall is not an exaggeration. Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of the examination papers, after the admission list is announced, each province needs to send the examination papers of the candidate who wins the imperial examination papers to the Ministry of Rites for review. This step is called "moothing".

"Surfing" is generally completed by the Ministry of Rites and Hanlin Academy. Those noble and boring officials will review each test paper to check whether the examiner cheats during the review process, and whether the examiner is serious in the review process, such as typos in the test paper, and whether the examiner has identified the test paper. If the mistakes and omissions in the review process of the examiner, once the examiner is found, severe punishment must be imposed. According to regulations, if the examiner does not read the whole "sentence" during the review process of the examiner, there will be a one-level penalty. If the examiner is wrong in the reading of the sentence, he will be fined one year. If the circumstances are serious, he will be reduced to several years of salary. Who can bear those examiners who are originally a small official of the sixth and seventh rank?

The idea of ​​making articles on "sentence reading" is so that the examiners can mark the papers well. This is simply a bt-point idea. Because there is no need to punctuate the articles at this time. When the examiners mark the papers, they must carefully read every sentence in each article, otherwise they will not be able to break the sentences and circle them.

Therefore, it is impossible for the markers to look at ten lines at a glance. They must read them word by word. Not only should they pay attention to whether the text is smooth, but they should also write comments on each test paper and state the reasons for whether to recommend the paper.

Think about it, there are so many test papers, so time is so urgent, and there are so few people who can get a mistake, and they will be impeached and demoted. The content of the test is so complex, involving so many styles, and the articles are all facets, with differences in both fair and real, real and simple, and the thickness of the test papers. Even if the examiners are all gods, they cannot read all the test papers on time with quality and quantity.

Therefore, after hundreds of years of adaptation, the examiners gradually formed a tacit understanding. The first chapter of the paper was to focus on seven articles and eight-part essays. For the next two, the text only needs to be smooth and there are no typos.

Why only the eight-legged essays are emphasized? Because this is a very strict style of writing, for examiners, it is easier to grasp the right and wrong of the right and wrong of the exam. Therefore, it can greatly improve the speed of marking papers, facilitate the evaluation of whether the exam is appropriate, so that all exams can be read one by one as scheduled, and minimize the subjective factors of the examiner, thereby ensuring the seriousness and fairness of the official selection exam.

For example, the style of the Eight-Legend Essay stipulates that you can only use two sentences to solve the topic at the beginning. If you use two sentences to solve the topic, or even if you solve the topic, you use more than two sentences. Or you cannot solve the topic and the god of the question; or if you solve the topic, you may not read the name of sages such as Confucius and Mencius, but do not use the word "drama", this article is inconsistent and can be taken without taking it.

Each of the following "continuing the topic", "original topic", "starting lecture", "introduction" and other strings have strict format and layout requirements. If it is right or wrong, it is clear at a glance and there is no dispute. As long as one of the points has a problem, this text can be deposed, saving a lot of time.

Basically, through this method of not being able to use your brain at all, most of the test papers can be eliminated. For those who have completed the remaining half of the whole article, it will be clear to see if they have achieved the beginning, inheritance, transformation, and levels. If you do well in these aspects, you can add comments to the examiner and recommend them to the two main testimonials for the final decision.

Therefore, although its rigid program and rigidity are criticized by others, it really makes candidates only follow step by step and dare not step by step. However, it is precisely because of the strict regulations on the number of words and sentences that the examiners can examine each test paper at a glance, greatly saving the time of subjective thinking, improving the efficiency of marking papers, and increasing the objectivity of marking papers, minimizing the subjective factors of the examiners, thus ensuring the rights and interests of the candidates to the greatest extent, so that the truly outstanding people can obtain fame and fame. This is the most objective and fair way to obtain talents in this era...

How to write a good eight-legged essay requires years of hard study and training. It is too late to improve your level at this time. At this time, senior teachers mainly teach candidates issues that should be avoided in writing, such as avoiding the taboos of imperial names and temples, and not being allowed to describe themselves. They must avoid these careless losses in Jingzhou.

Generally speaking, the provincial examination is much stricter than any previous examination, but there are also some that are not strict, that is, the font requirements for the candidates are not high. Because all the test papers will be copied into the same handwriting by a dedicated person. As long as you write the words clearly, it will not affect your grades, and the same is true for the examination.
Chapter completed!