The number of people who sat for the lowest level exams was always massive, and the pass rate quite small; in some periods as few as 0.1% of candidates passed the county exams and became ''shēngyuán''. Even so, ''shēngyuán'' came to represent a rather significant proportion of society by the mid-Qing, though by that time, the ''jìnshì'' rank was all but required for someone to be considered a member of the elite. To illustrate this shift in demographics, there are estimated to have been roughly one ''shēngyuán'' per 2200 people in 1500, in contrast to a figure of one ''shēngyuán'' per 300 people two hundred years later. | The number of people who sat for the lowest level exams was always massive, and the pass rate quite small; in some periods as few as 0.1% of candidates passed the county exams and became ''shēngyuán''. Even so, ''shēngyuán'' came to represent a rather significant proportion of society by the mid-Qing, though by that time, the ''jìnshì'' rank was all but required for someone to be considered a member of the elite. To illustrate this shift in demographics, there are estimated to have been roughly one ''shēngyuán'' per 2200 people in 1500, in contrast to a figure of one ''shēngyuán'' per 300 people two hundred years later. |