In chapter 3,
范进, a poor scholar in his fifties who has sat the exams for more than thirty years, finally passes as a
举人. On hearing the news he claps, laughs and runs into the street out of his mind, until his father-in-law, the butcher
胡屠户, slaps him back to his senses. Taught in middle school, it is the best-known satire of the old examination system.
