Q: What was three Su's experience during the imperial examinations around then capital Luoyang?

This chapter focuses on the time when Su Tungpo and his brother, along with their father, took their examinations in Luoyang. Before that, both Su and his brother had married the local girls, their marriages arranged by their parents. Lin holds that there are actually quite a few benefits of arranged marriage, since it saves time and energy and spares them the emotional confusion in trying to select and attract a desirable match. After all, all marriages, however arranged, are a gamble and an adventure upon an uncharted sea.

 Then they set out for the capital, and all made quite good impressions on the government leaders. Su Tungpo at once found favor with the influential examiner who could make or unmake a scholar by a word of praise or blame. In this case, Su was made nationally well-known by his generous praise.

He was developing the theme that in giving rewards one should rather err on the side of generosity, and in punishment one should give every benefit of the doubt to an offender lest an innocent man be killed.

If you give someone the benefit of the doubt, you treat them as if they are telling the truth or as if they have behaved properly,even though you are not sure that this is the case.

It was the moment to which all his years of grinding labor and hours of burning the midnight oil were supposed to lead.

The candidates' papers were recopied by official clerks before they were submitted to the examiners, to avoid recognition of their identity by their handwriting.

Plant

■If you plant a particular area, you put plants into the ground there于…栽种植物

•The plot was surrounded by a stone wall and planted with flowering trees.那个地方围着石墙，种着繁花盛开的树。

•a densely planted garden (= one in which theplantsare close together)花木茂密的花园