22 of 23 candidates flunk out of Yunnan civil service exam  

云南公务员考试1岗位23人参考22人零分 回应属缺考

5月22日上午10点，针对昨天网络上“云南省公务员考试一岗位23人参加22人零分”的事件，云南省公务员局召开新闻发布会做出回应：22个零分人员属缺考，具体原因正在调查中。[查看全文]

Twenty-two out of 23 examinees scored zero in the civil service examination in Southwest China's Yunnan province but authorities claimed the 22 were all absent, the China National Radio reported Thursday.

"The specific reasons for the 22 people's absence are still under investigation, and we will publish the findings in a timely manner," Bao Xintao, an official at the provincial bureau of civil servants told reporters in a press conference held on Thursday.

The conference lasted one minute and 35 seconds, and the reporters were left feeling lost, Du Peng, a local TV station reporter, wrote on her microblog.

Net user Bingshan Xiao Taiyang broke the news on China's Twitter-like microblog service Sina Weibo on Wednesday, revealing that the exam scores for a position in the tax bureau of Xishan district of Kunming, the capital city of the province, showed one person scored 125.5 points, and the remaining 22 all got zero.

It was "normal" for candidates to score zero if they cheated or were absent, an official from the province's department of human resources and social security told the China News Service. Precedents had occurred but the number of candidates who got zero was not that many, the official said.

Similar situations were found in civil service exams throughout the province, the Beijing News reported on Thursday, listing three other positions where two or three examinees scored marks while all the other candidates got zero.