<P> Ancient China was the first country in the world that implemented a nationwide standardized test, which was called the imperial examination . The main purpose of this examination was to select able candidates for specific governmental positions . The imperial examination was established by the Sui dynasty in 605 AD and was later abolished by the Qing dynasty 1300 years later in 1905 . England had adopted this examination system in 1806 to select specific candidates for positions in Her Majesty's Civil Service, modeled on the Chinese imperial examination . This examination system was later applied to education and it started to influence other parts of the world as it became a prominent standard (e.g. regulations to prevent the markers from knowing the identity of candidates), of delivering standardized tests . </P> <P> As the profession transitioned to the modern mass - education system, the style of examination became fixed, with the stress on standardized papers to be sat by large numbers of students . Leading the way in this regard was the burgeoning Civil Service that began to move toward a meritocratic basis for selection in the mid 19th century in England . </P> <P> British civil service was influenced by the imperial examinations system and meritocratic system of China . Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in Guangzhou, China argued in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China, published in 1847, that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only," and that the British must reform their civil service by making the institution meritocratic . As early as in 1806, the Honourable East India Company established a college near London to train and examine administrators of the Company's territories in India . Examinations for the Indian' civil service' - a term coined by the Company--were introduced in 1829 . </P> <P> In 1853 the Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone, commissioned Sir Stafford Northcote and Charles Trevelyan to look into the operation and organisation of the Civil Service . Influenced by the ancient Chinese Imperial Examination, the Northcote--Trevelyan Report of 1854 made four principal recommendations: that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through standardized written examination, that candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers, that recruits should be graded into a hierarchy and that promotion should be through achievement, rather than' preferment, patronage or purchase' . A Civil Service Commission was also set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage, and most of the other Northcote--Trevelyan recommendations were implemented over some years . </P>

Tet is to measure which of the following