Well Im not surprised that there are alot of and standardisation in term of the desired answering format, or narration, for the Exam questions, after all it is the most reasonable thing to do since each year there would be tens of thousands of people taking the test. However, even with a standardized format, the test taker would still need to do critical thinking, in a way to 'guess' what kind of answer the examiners want to see. In a way, this is what most standardized tests is like even today, from CIE A levels, SAT, to GaoKao, all of these huge standardised testing have what we call "Marking Scheme", which follow a set of expected answering scheme, but does not mean that these tests doesnt require critical thinking and are only pure memory test.
But regardless of all the controversies, the Chinese Examination system form the foundation of what we now know as a standardised test, which is still widely employed in todays world, and responding to
NordicDemosthenes , the system is still much better than anything europe had to offer at the time.
Critical thinking as a way to "guess what kind of answer the examiners want to see". Brilliant: I bet that kind of mentality is exactly what you want to encourage in a large organization if you are to maximize efficiency, not to speak of fairness. The true sign of a bureaucracy inculcating a mentality of uncorruptability, objectivity and concern with the public good in its future scions.
Or not.
Lawyers and doctors for example usually have not (since the renaissance, and middle ages in the case of lawyers) been examined primarily by test-taking alone, but have been taught by shadowing one in their field or sitting in on lots of court-room decisions/ dissections etc. Standardized tests are a great way to, as JBI pointed out, shape your candidates mental processes. Some standardized tests are fairly objective (IQ-tests for example), but as soon as you start writing tests with more instrumental or subjective knowledge you will always end up in a situation that is shall we say, sub-optimal.
The reason standardized tests have been implemented as a recruiting tool in the West have much more to do with 1) the need for larger bureaucracies meant that traditional forms of advancement in government became difficult or impossible 2) as a way to combat corruption. I honestly don't think anyone considers standardized tests in and of themselves to be this brilliant invention for testing suitability: it might do a good job of raising the average base-line, but point me out a situation in which test-taking ability is a good indication of true excellence and I will point out a broken system.
That arch administrator, Bismarck, only passed his tests for the Prussian Civil Service by hiring a "crammer" - repeatedly his academic merits were quite... spotty, overall. He got most of his knowledge by selecting his own lists for reading and practical experience. Modern bureaucracies and organizations often seem to promote mediocrity.
Anyway, as for your second claim that Europe did not have anything better to offer.... here is where you misunderstand my point. Europe at the time (when exactly is that by the way? Before the 1850s?) didn't have as large a bureaucracy a China, because overall there was no need for it. The more decentralized nature of European governance, the greater prominence of wars and the warrior aristocracy etc. meant that government bureaucrats were simply not responsible for as many matters of state as Chinese bureaucrats - they were mainly concentrated to the legal system and book-keeping. Unlike in China (from what I know), lawyers, doctors etc. had their independent tests and so on, decided by local guilds and communities - not the state. They varied somewhat, but usually had some kind of "test-dimension" but with a large focus on other issues: legal practice in the case of lawyers, and increasing elements of dissection, anatomy etc. in the case of doctors from the Renaissance onward.
Also, since when is having a huge and powerful bureaucracy actually an advantage to a country? You can argue that point if you will, I don't believe so.
Regardless, my points are - I believe - quite illustrated by where the British first decided to implement standardized tests. It was
1) for administration of the Colonies and 2) Education. These are areas which were well suited to (or needed) both larger bureaucracies, and are comparatively well suited to standardized testing. In the colonies for example it is quite easy for the government to decide what is "rational" and "desirable" over the heads of the people - as the people are not free, but rather subjected to a foreign power. While the chinese imperial bureaucracy was perhaps not seen as "foreign" by the provincials in the same way the European colonial powers were, I believe the dynamics are still quite similar, are they not?