While I didn't get much time with the academic community, in talking to students, education seems to still be one of China's bottlenecks - rote lectures, passive learning, follow the process, exam-based performance, etc.
These lawyers typically go through a fairly rigorous screening process (exams, recommendations, experience, etc).
In fact, the expression/correlation behaviour of a large pathway could be misleading, hiding significant parts of the pathway mostly involved in the biological process under exam.
This doesn't just mean that only more-able students will benefit from the exam process.
After a bidding process, just one exam board will be selected by the regulator, Ofqual, to offer qualifications in each subject.
Defending the quality of markers, the JCQ said the annual exam process was "a huge undertaking that could not have been done without the tens of thousands of dedicated teachers" who graded papers.
Meritocratic governance is deeply-rooted in China's Confucian political tradition, which among other things allowed the country to develop and sustain for well over a millennium the Keju system, the world's first public exam process for selecting officials.
"At any one time I have 50 or so patent applications going through the exam process.
The beta exam process helps us to change or eliminate test questions that may be too difficult, too easy or too confusing.
Mr Cummings added: "More importantly, we stopped him corrupting the free school process and setting exam grades by improper interference, which particularly infuriated him.
Other desirable qualities in a patent agent include: creativity to envision the invention for what it could be, not just what the inventor has already done; effective time-management skills to know how to efficiently use the limited time available to produce the best product possible; and determination to persevere through the pressures and difficulties of the profession, such as the exam process!
