Starting in Sui Dynasty, the imperial government selected its officials from the ranks of the successfull candidates in imperial civil examinations.

Imperial civil examination in Tang Dynasty was classified into two types: the regular one and the irregular one. The regular examination was held every year. It had many levels, such as Xiucai, Mingjing, and Jinshi. The Jinshi degree was the most difficult to attain. Every year hundreds of students took the Jinshi examination, but only one or two passed. Those who passed the Jinshi examination would attend a lavish banquet held by the Qujiang Pond, and their names would be announced under Greater Goose Pagoda in the Ci'en Temple. The irregular examination was set spontaneously by the emperor himself, who acted as the chief examiner. However, it was of less importance than the regular one.

There were two kinds of people who took imperial civil examination. One consisted of students chosen by academies, who were called Shengtu; the other kind, called Xianggong, consisted of those who had passed the examinations held by prefectures and counties. The imperial civil examination in Tang Dynasty was usually presided over by the Board of Rites. Those who passed the examination would be re-examined by the Board of Rites, and then receive various kindl of official position according to their examination results.

Imperial examination system was the method used until the late yearsof Chinese last feudal dynasty, Qing, which fell in 1911, to choose talented people for official positions. Many historians thought that imperial civil examination system was an excellent system for selecting civilians and it has been the guarantee of the sound development from Sui and Tang dynasties to Ming and Qing dynasties for more than 1,000 years. However, during Ming and Qing dynasties, imperial civil examination system, which stressed knowledge of the Confucian classics exclusively, became a rigid and stultifying institution which kept China from adopting modern scientific methods.