Chinese Use of Essay Exams for Civil Service Selection and Development of Psychological Testing in the 21st Century

People in the world are facing numerous problems daily. Some problems are critical, and they require other parties help to solve the problem. Psychologist do constant work to help people to overcome personal issue occurs in day-to-day life. As a result more testing methods has been introduced to find solutions to the issues. Organizations are also in critical situations at times and would require expert attention to overcome situations. Each field has different types of issues and do use different methods to test and fine solutions.

To provide best solutions and for better understanding on the issues occurred, a test, or an assessment was required. As a result testing methods came into the play. Today there are numbers of tests done using various methods to identify issues and provide solutions to overcome them.

Psychological testing has been done using sample behaviors of a person and assessing psychological constructs as cognitive and emotional functions. A psychological test was generally conducted as a series of tasks to respond or questions to answer. There are various types Psychological tests. Role play tests, IQ Tests, Attitude test, and personality test can be taken as examples. IQ test has been used to measure intelligence level using a series of tasks given to the test taker and evaluating according to the test guidelines. Attitude test identifies thoughts of an individual on an object or person. Personality tests identities person's attitude or character. Questionnaires, Interviews, Observations have been to conduct the test. There are several popular tests used by psychologists, which are Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Graduate Record Exam (GRE), Rorschach ink blot test, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (Cohen & Swerdlik, 2010, p. 20)

The evolution of the Chinese essay exam started in 2200 b.c.e. The belief is that the test and testing programs have been introduced by Chinese. In china testing has been initially used to select an applicant for government jobs when several job applicant s are available. China with their population (country with the largest population in the world), required a screening method for selecting the best out of all people applies for a position. The best method they found was to conduct a test and to award the position to the highest scorer. Passing the examination for government job required lengthy hours of hard work, studying literature, or work with tutor. The population is china was depending on agricultural economy and the land owners could spend time and money for children to sit for the examination. As a result on entering the government sector their lifestyle improved drastically (Cohen & Swerdlik, 2010, P.36).

According to Cohen and Swerdlik (2010) the applicants has been tested on proficiency in endeavors such as music, archery, horsemanship, writing, and arithmetic, Subjects such as agriculture, geography, revenue, civil law, and