From Ichisada Miyazaki, China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, translated by Conrad Schirokauer. New Haven, CT: Yale University 1981 (1976), pp. 41-56.

Civil Service Examinations

In each provincial capital, there was a permanent examination compound. Like a honeycomb, it was an aggregation of thousands of single cells, each large enough to hold just one man. Cell adjoined cell to form a barnlike tenement, the whole maze occupying an extensive area. .
Within the Great Gate [the entrance to the examination compound] there was a large open area with a second gate on the north. Beyond that stretched a broad avenue, lined on both sides by the entrances to lanes. Each lane was about two meters wide and disproportionately deep, extending farther than the eye could see. Lining one side of each lane were countless small rooms or, more accurately, cells. These examination cells.. . had neither doors nor furniture and amounted to no more than spaces partitioned on three sides by brick walls and covered by a roof. The floors, naturally, were packed dirt. Each cell was equipped with only three long boards. When placed across the cell from wall to wall, the highest became a shelf, the middle one functioned as a desk, and the lowest served as a seat. There were no other facilities: it was really like a prison without bars. Here candidates taking the provincial examination had to spend three days and two nights in succession.
Because the building was used only once in three years, usually it was in poor condition even if occasional repairs were made. Shepherd's purse grew on the roof, the eaves were on the verge of collapse, moisture stained the walls. Since the lanes opened only at one end, a person walking in the wrong direction would feel as though he were in a labyrinth. . . . But if he walked in the right direction, he would emerge on the broad avenue that led to the Great Gate. . . .
Subdivided within and isolated by a great wall from the outside world, the whole examination compound had only one entrance, the Great Gate, which was used by the staff and the candidates alike A large quantity of water was required for the candidates' inkstones as well as for cooking and drinking. To meet this need there was a "water platform" at the left and at the right of the Great Gate, where pure water was brought in from the outside. Before the examination, laborers drew water from there and filled large jars placed at the entrance to each lane. These they replenished as needed. After that it was the candidate's chore to fetch the water he needed in an earthenware pot. After the examination, the human waste deposited in the toilet tubs placed at the end of each lane was collected by laborers. . . .
On the . . . day before the beginning of the examination, the candidates entered the compound. . . . After the roll call, [they] passed through the Great Gate, one by one, each guided by a minor official.... Each candidate carried a large load, since he had to spend three days and two nights in the compound. He needed not only writing materials, such as an inkstone, ink brushes, and a water pitcher, but also an earthenware pot, foodstuffs, bedding, and a curtain to hang across the entrance to his cell.
As soon as the candidates . . . entered the compound through the Great Gate they were searched. Four soldiers at a time frisked one candidate from top to bottom and made him open his luggage for inspection. It goes without saying that books were forbidden, and so was any piece of paper with writing on it. Since a soldier who discovered such a paper was awarded three ounces of silver, the inspection was most stringent. It is said that the soldiers went so far as to cut open dumplings in order to examine their bean-jam fillings….
After finding and entering his lane, each candidate located his own cell, identified by a number. Then he put up the three boards and arranged his things. Since at least ten thousand men-at times as many as twenty thousand-entered the compound and had to be searched, the procedure used up most of a day. Those who got in during the early morning took a short, disturbed nap on their seats. . . .
When the day-long commotion of entering the compound came to an end, and all the candidates were settled in their cells, the superintendent latched the Great Gate and sealed it. Now the candidates had to pass the night all alone in their cells, with nothing to do. Despite the good weather of midautumn, the cold air of a night wind easily penetrated the curtains of the open cells, and the thin bedding on the hard seat did not entirely keep out the cold. Worst of all, the cells were so narrow that the candidates could not stretch their legs to the full, but dozed off while bent over like shrimp.
Yet a still more compelling reason why they could not have enjoyed a good long sleep that night was the fact that the examination began early in the morning of the next day, while it was still dark. . . .
After receiving the questions [on the morning of the first day] the candidates placed their heads between their hands and racked their brains, setting about to draw up their answers. Plenty of time was given: they had until the evening of the following day . . . to finish. After polishing their drafts on rough paper, they wrote out a clean copy when finally they had become sufficiently confident in their answers. While they suffered . . . time passed mercilessly. If they became hungry they ate the dumplings they had brought along, and those who had time to spare cooked rice in their earthenware pots. If rain fell during those two days, more than likely raindrops were blown by the wind into the doorless cells, and then the candidates desperately tried to shield their answer papers, more precious than life itself, making pathetic efforts to protect them although they themselves got wet. At night they were permitted to light a candle, but if it fell and burned a hole in the answer paper they were in trouble. Boys from good families, brought up carefully and never exposed even to a rough wind, had to fend for themselves, and for the only time in their pampered lives had to take care of everything by themselves alone. They were like raw recruits in an army.
When a candidate became tired at night, he could lay out his bedding again and take a rest. But a bright light in a neighboring cell would make him feel that he, too, should be hard at work, and so he would get up again to face his paper. Suffering from fatigue, and under heavy pressure, most candidates became a little strange in the head, and many were unable to work at their best. In the most severe cases, men became sick or insane. . . .
At about six o'clock [the next morning], the sound of cannon followed by some music signaled the end of the examination and indicated that it was time to hand in the answers. However, those who had not yet finished could remain behind and continue working until that evening. In this respect the system was relaxed and even generous.
Those who had finished writing handed in their papers at receiving counters arranged by district. Then the papers were thoroughly checked for violations of the formal regulations. Cutting out miswritten characters and pasting in a piece of paper, leaving blank spaces, skipping parts of a page, or handing in a completely white paper with no writing on it whatsoever were considered to be infractions of the rules. The name of anyone guilty of this kind of offense was posted outside the compound, and he was barred from taking future examinations. Those candidates whose papers were accepted received exit passes, packed their belongings, and left the compound through the Great Gate in large groups. That night they returned to their lodgings after an absence of two days, but they could not sleep there in comfort, for they had to get up in the middle of the night to enter the compound for the second time.
Early in the morning . . . while it was still dark, again they gathered in front of the Great Gate, went through the roll call, and entered the compound shouldering their baggage. The next morning the second round of problems was distributed, this time five questions on the Five Classics. After writing out clean copies of their answers, the candidates had to reproduce several sentences from the opening paragraphs of their answer to questions [from] the first session, or else add to the poem they had composed in the earlier test, in order to prove that the papers for the two examinations had been written by the same man. Forbidden to bring in or carry out any slips of paper, they had to rely on memory. For this reason, generally a discrepancy of up to ten characters was overlooked, but in a case of great discrepancy the man was presumed guilty of having used a substitute and was barred from examinations in the future.
The second session ended on the evening of the [following] day, and early the next morning the candidates entered the compound for the third session. . . .
Having handed in their papers at last the candidates could relax, but now the onerous duties began for the examination staff. . . . Since between ten and twenty thousand papers were submitted at each session they formed a mountainous pile that could be demolished only through a difficult and complex process.
Since the candidates' answers were written in black ink and absolutely no other color was permitted, they were called the "black versions." To guard against the possibility that the graders might show partiality to certain candidates whose writing they recognized, they were not shown the original papers. Instead, the black versions were copied by clerks in the outer section of the compound. Before that, however, the candidate's name, age, and other information about himself on the cover of the black version were concealed so that only the seat number remained visible. Then the black version was sent to the clerks to be copied on separate sheets of paper, this time using only vermilion ink, so that the copyists could not revise the original papers on their own initiative. Copying so many papers was hard work and required the services of several thousand clerks.
Next the vermilion copies, together with the black originals, were passed on to the proofread-ers, of whom there were several hundred. They made their corrections in yellow ink. Both copyists and proofreaders noted their names on the papers, to make clear their responsibility; needless to say, if any wrongdoing was discovered, those responsible were punished.
When the proofreading was completed, both versions were sent to the custodian, who retained the original and delivered the copy to the examiners in the inner section. The transfer of the copies through the single narrow door that connected the two sections took place under strict supervision.
The vermilion papers first passed through the hands of the associate examiners, who had to do the grading in designated places and were forbidden to carry a paper somewhere else on their own initiative. They used blue ink for their remarks and, by carefully reading the vermilion copies, decided in general upon passes and failures. When they wrote "mediocre" on the cover, or "without merit," or other such critical comments, the paper failed. When the paper was considered to be "excellent in style and content," they wrote "recommended" on the cover and then the paper was delivered to the chief and deputy examiners, who usually read only these recommended papers. . . .
When the grading was completed, the results of the three examinations were averaged and the final decisions were reached about who should be passed. The number to be passed was fixed for each province, with more than ninety places allowed for a large province and forty for a small one. . . .
For the announcement of the results, the examination staff brought out a large placard on which, in full public view, they wrote the names of the successful candidates in sequence. Using a piece of white paper bearing a drawing of a dragon on the right and a tiger on the left, they left blank a small space at the beginning and wrote out the names from the sixth man on down. After writing the last name, they rested for a while. The candidates whose names had appeared were very happy; the others, even though most of them would be failures, still clung to a thin thread of hope, since it was not impossible that they might be among the top five names yet to be announced. At last the members of the staff returned, and as they wrote in the first five names, the crowd applauded. When the supervisor finished his inspection and affixed his great seal to the list, everything was over.