In 1901 the Ch’ing government ordered a change in format for the civil examinations, replacing the eight-legged essay with ts’e lun (policy and discourse) questions, effective the following year. The “Chung-kuo cheng-chih shi-shi-lun” (discourses on the history of Chinese politics) and “ke-kuo cheng-chih i-hsueh-ts’e” (policy questions on world politics) thenceforth became the focus of preparation for all three sessions of the examinations. This change not only addressed the demand of officials and literati for reform of the examination system, but was also considered a critical transition for a future full-scale replacement of the examinations by the new schools. It was believed that the ts’e lun, with its pragmatic nature, was closer to the pedagogy of the new schools. However, regardless of their similarities, we can also see differences in methodology, attitudes and objectives for knowledge acquisition between ts’e lun and the new schools. Still, even though ts’e lun were only used for less than four years, they did play a significant role in the process of knowledge transformation in modern China. This article first discusses how ts’e lun in itself was gradually transformed from the information popular at coastal treaty ports into an institutionalized knowledge system based on materials such as hui-shi-luand hsiang-shih-lu (records of metropolitan and provincial examinations), t’i-ming-lu (civil service examination rolls), and chu-chuan and mo-chuan (scripts and copies of examination essays). Second, it analyzes how institutionalized ts’e lun led ultimately to the replacement of the civil examinations by the new schools.