Ah, the joys of test-taking. Who doesn’t like writing an essay under immense pressure? This week on Big Time Whoopsies, Major Casts co-founder Liam Senior joins Eric to discover the highs and the lows of the Chinese civil service exams.

Edit: I kind of garbled the list of works students were expected to know by heart, so click here for a more complete look. Also, the main source for this episode is China’s Examination Hell by Ichisada Miyazaki, translated by Conrad Schirokauer. You can find it here.