《儒林外史》描寫周進評閱范進八股文，看第一遍時，指斥「都說的是些甚麼話」，看第二遍「覺得有些意思」，看第三遍「纔曉得是天地間之至文」。學者大都認為吳敬梓藉這段描寫，譏諷身為考官的周進，對八股不甚會心、不知文章的好壞、評文不嚴謹，不是好考官，並質疑范進文章不佳，周進因同情而錄取了他。且言吳敬梓藉著周進閱卷的這段敘述，諷刺八股文的評價毫無標準，全憑考官好惡，藉以批判當時的科舉制度云云。 筆者以為上述慣見的詮釋，頗值得商榷。本文將立足於以往對明清科舉、八股文的研究基礎上，辨析先前學者相關論述的得失，進而對吳敬梓的敘述意涵，提出另一種新的解釋。

One of the chapters within Rulin Waishi describes a condition as Zhou Jin grading Fan Jin’s eight legged essay. It is said, the first time Zhou Jin read Fan’s essay and blasted it was nonsense. The second time, Zhou Jin read the essay and said it was interesting. At the third time, he thought it was the best essay ever. Due to the wide gap among the comments at the same essay, most of the scholars in nowadays think the author of Rulin Waishi meant to cast the sarcasm by the chapter to express Zhou Jin neither a good exam official nor a fair grader, lacking grading standard and scrupulous attitude while grading on the essays. The scholars also interpreted the chapter as Chou Jin sympathized Fan Jin failing on exams several times and gave him a rank on the exam even though his essay couldn’t meet the standard. They consider that the author would like to make a comment on Ming-Qing imperial examination and to state that it had no standards on grading eight-legged essays and only relied on examiners’ favor. I think the scholars’ habitual interpretation is not really correct. This study will be conducted on the basis of the eight legged essay and Ming-Qing imperial examination system to recognize the scholars’ views whether appropriate or not and redefine the meaning of Wu Jin-zi’s description in Rulin Waishi.