The Grand Secretariat also announced that, ten days later, every county, prefecture, and province in the Jing Kingdom, as well as the capital, would hold a nationwide, standardized clerk examination modeled on the Imperial Examination.
Since this was a trial run, future clerk examinations would gradually be improved.
The clerk examination consisted of three sessions.
The first session contained two papers.
The first paper primarily tested administrative knowledge, covering matters such as public security, officials and clerks, law, and the common people. It included multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, short answers, and other formats.
The second paper was an aptitude test, primarily assessing a person's overall abilities in judgment, reasoning, comprehension, analysis, arithmetic, and related areas.
In the second session, candidates would receive different papers according to the positions they had applied for.
The second session also contained two papers.
The first paper was divided by school of thought. Candidates would answer the paper for whichever school their desired position involved.
The second paper was position-specific. Candidates would answer the paper for whichever position they wished to hold.
The third session tested only one subject: policy analysis and essay writing.
After the examination, grading would take three days, and the results would be announced on the fourth. Each paper was worth one hundred points, for a total of five hundred. Clerks would be recruited according to their final scores.
This clerk examination imposed no restrictions on status or Literary Rank. Even those with certain physical impairments or illnesses could be recruited, provided they could perform normal duties in government offices and achieved the required score.
Many other details were listed as well.
Since this was a trial examination and preparations had been somewhat rushed, Fang Yun alone would set all the questions. The Grand Secretariat Councillors would review and finalize them,