On the tenth day of the first month, Xinzheng County Yazhangbang announced the county that this year's county examination has been scheduled for February 12, and the examination will be held in the county government.

Gao Shishi, who learned the news, did not have the shelf of the prince's close ministers, and personally rushed to the county government room to register the next morning, filled in his name, place of origin, age, and the resumes of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

The officials of the Xinzheng County Government are all local hereditary officials, for them, even if they don't know the county respect, they don't dare not know the young master of the Gao family who took the exam, so the steps that should have been arranged have already been arranged, and they are respectfully completed with Gao Pragmatic.

On February 12, the sixth room of the Gao family sent four domestic servants who were most familiar with the county officials, together with ten Gao pragmatic horsemen, to escort Gao Shishi to the county government office under the leadership of Gao Jue.

In fact, Gao Pragmatic arrived at the county seat a day in advance, and slept in Wubo Gaocai that night, only two miles away from the county office, and there was no need for any guards, but Zhang disagreed, feeling that this was the first scientific expedition in Gao Pragmatic's life, and there could be no accidents - even if he walked on the road, no one could delay him for a moment.

The majesty of the powerful eunuch, high pragmatism is very experienced.

Gao pragmatic according to the scientific research practice of the time to rush to the county government, the day is not yet bright, the lamp in front of the ya, the county lord has been sitting on the platform outside the gate, the officials on both sides are separated, according to the roll call, the book recognizes, after the award of the volume, Gao pragmatic will take the long-eared bamboo basket from the hand of Gao Jue, who is a temporary guest scholar, and enter the basket.

The long-eared bamboo basket carried the pen, ink, inkstone and food needed for the exam, but there was no need to bring paper, because the test paper was prepared by the county government room, with a total of more than ten pages of rolling paper, 14 lines per page, 18 characters per line, the red line was horizontal and vertical, and there were several blank scratch papers.

Xinzheng is not a county, but a middle county, and there is no special examination booth, so the location of the exam is in the county hall. The lobby is five rooms with two volumes and a total of ten rooms, which is extremely spacious, which is a place to hear major cases and implement the rules of the bureaucracy.

Each person's examination paper has a seat number printed on it, but in fact, the county examination does not require that you have to sit down according to the seat number, so there are often candidates who rush to the second and third rows of seats with good light and not exposed to the sun and rain after entering the venue. This is because the first row is under the eaves, which has enough light but is difficult to shelter from the wind and rain, and the back seat is not well lit. There is only one day in the prefectural exam, and no lights are allowed, which is called "no candle", and if the light is too dim, it will of course be very disadvantageous for the exam.

However, Gao Pragmatic obviously has a certain privilege, although there are quite a few candidates competing for seats, but no one has been grabbing his position, so he easily sat in the second row and the third - this is the best position, and it is obviously arranged by the county officials in advance.

After the county honorifies the roll call, all the children enter the lobby, and then the county government seals the door and locks it, and the county honorifies the exam questions in person.

In the Ming Dynasty, the county test was only one attempt, and all four book questions were produced, and the south generally tested two eight-strand essays, and most of the northern exams were only one test, but regardless of the north and south, the questions in the county test were mostly small questions.

The so-called small questions are questions with incomplete meaning. This kind of question is either taken from one or several words in the four books; Or truncate the first half of a sentence with complete meaning, leaving only half of the sentence, which is called truncating; Or truncating the second half of a sentence with complete meaning and leaving only the first half of the sentence is called a truncation question.

When making a truncated question or a truncated question, the words of the truncated part should not be written directly in the text, but the meaning of the truncated part should be included, so it is very difficult to do. There are also partial questions, dry questions and other titles.

More difficult questions to do are the so-called interception questions. Taking a sentence in the Four Books or the Pentateuch, cutting off the first half of the sentence, and then placing the upper half of the sentence on top of the next sentence is called a truncation question.

Some truncation questions even take the first half of the first sentence of a section or chapter together, often the meaning of the two sentences is unrelated, and candidates have to try to connect the meaning of the two sentences, which is the most difficult to do. However, because this kind of question can best exercise and test the thinking of candidates, it is widely used in the children's examination, but it is not commonly used in the township examination and the general examination.

As for the reason, it's simple. The township examination and the meeting examination are already part of the great canon of selecting talents, and the use of such questions that separate the meaning of the scriptures is inconsistent with the purpose of the imperial examination to inculcate Confucian orthodoxy in scholars.

Gao Pragmatic sat down, and found that there was a lot more scratch paper on his desk than on the adjacent table, and he couldn't help but cry and laugh.

In fact, he didn't feel that he needed to take extra care of the county exam at all. But looking back, with the status of his Gao family in Xinzheng, people just took care of it, and did not act more out of line, which is already very disciplined!

Gao pragmatic opened the question paper and looked at it, and it was written on it as "or born to know and one of its knows".

Sure enough, it was a truncation question, but fortunately, the interception was not very biased.

This title is from the 20th chapter of "The Mean": "Either born to know, or learned to know, or sleepy to know, and one of them to know."

Hey, the meaning of this question, is it ......

Gao Pragmatic subconsciously raised his head and looked at the county magistrate sitting on the stage, but saw that the county lord who was already not young happened to look at him, and as soon as the two made eye contact, Gao Pragmatic affirmed: The county lord probably also heard all kinds of prodigy rumors about himself, and regarded himself as a person who was "born to know", but he used this topic to remind himself not to be proud because he was born to know, because those who "learn and know" and "sleepy and know", as long as they "know" in the end, according to Confucius, it will be the same.

Of course, I understand the meaning of the county lord's kindness to remind me, and it is not the same thing as "solving the problem", and solving the problem depends on the skills of writing articles.

However, although this question is a truncated question, it may be that the county respects the general level of students in the north, so the meaning of this question has not been separated, and it is still a question with a clear theme.

High pragmatism: knowledge, benevolence, and courage are the three virtues of the world; Knowledge, knowledge, and knowledge can all be obtained in peace, benefit, and reluctance, so the ancients said that "one of its knowledge" and "one of its successes".

Therefore, the main purpose of this question should be determined as: life knowledge and safe action, learning knowledge and good practice, and difficult knowledge and hard work, and according to the traditional habits of Confucianism, we should focus on "sleepy knowledge and hard work".

Gao pragmatic smiled, easily studied the ink, lifted the pen, did not wait, and began to make drafts smoothly.

When the county lord on the stage saw it, he was quite surprised, thought about it, and couldn't help but stand up and start patrolling, but he deliberately walked to Gao Shishi's side.

I saw that Gao Pragmatic had already written three paragraphs in the standard Taiwan cabinet style.

The county respected only glanced at Gao Pragmatic's problem-solving, and sighed in his heart: There is no vanity under the fame.

But I saw that the high pragmatic draft was written on the top of the inscription:

The knowledge is not the same, and the knowledge is no different.