ABSTRACT
As has been documented by many scholars, objective testing began in China during the Han dynasty (Spolsky, 1995). Such testing was used in Imperial China to select the highest offi cials of the land (Arnove, Altback & Kelly, 1992; Hu, 1984; Lai, 1970), which were probably the fi rst civil service examinations ever developed in the world. To avoid corruption, all essays in the Imperial Examination were marked anonymously, and the Emperor personally supervised the fi nal stage of the examination (see Chapter 2 for details). In addition, throughout Chinese history, testing and examinations have been seen by the general public as ways of encouraging the development of talent, to upgrade the performance of schools and colleges, and to counter to some degree, nepotism, favoritism, and even outright corruption in the allocation of scarce opportunities (Cheng & Qi, 2006; Bray & Steward, 1998; Eckstein & Noah, 1992). To this day, testing and examinations remain very powerful forces in China (Li, 1990), so much so that they are sometimes used for purposes beyond that for which they are intended (Cheng, 2008; see also Chapters 3 and 4).
