# An account with 108 followers put civil service exam questions on GitHub and got 2,287 stars · GitHub open-source project

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> "Quiz app explanations cost money, here everything is free" plus the easy-to-copy number "515 sets, nearly 60k questions", passed along by resource-sharing accounts on X, Official Accounts, and Weibo to the civil service crowd. The two peaks landed right on the National Day prep period and national exam registration.

[GitHub open-source project](https://stringers.io/en/github/index.md) · written 11-6

ERRRC/xingcezhenti · ERRRC

# An account with 108 followers put civil service exam questions on GitHub and got 2,287 stars

**What it is** An open-source question bank of China's civil service exam (Xingce) past papers: ten years of national and provincial exam stems, options, answers, and official explanations, organized as a folder you can open in Obsidian and practice offline.

**Why it took off** The message "explanations on prep apps cost money, here it's all free," plus an easy-to-copy number, "515 papers, nearly 60k questions," got passed around on X, WeChat Official Accounts, and Weibo by resource-sharing accounts to exam-takers. Two peaks landed right on National Day prep season and the national exam registration period.

**A** **How you could follow it** Pick a big exam nobody has covered yet (teacher certification, the bar exam, CPA, public institution jobs, or one subject of the postgraduate entrance exam). Build a deduplicated open question bank with a web version, using questions and explanations whose sources you can clearly account for. Release it just before registration or the exam, and pitch it directly to Chinese resource-sharing accounts.

Grade A: the play is clear, and it doesn't depend on the author's own following. Other exams are still nearly empty on GitHub. The bet is whether a complete question bank with explanations and clean sourcing can be assembled, and whether copyright holders will file takedown complaints. Being talked about in small circles

Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-09-16 · 2,316 stars · 7 days +204

GitHub · stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

xingcezhenti is a GitHub repo with a single commit: 2016 to 2026 years of national and provincial civil service Xingce past papers, with stems, options, answers, and official explanations, all exported to Markdown and openable in Obsidian for offline practice. The author has no following of their own and never made GitHub Trending. The stars all came from Chinese resource-sharing accounts passing it along to exam-takers. The code has no barrier at all; the hard part is where the question bank came from.

### One tweet, 373 stars in a day

On the afternoon of 2026 Sep 16, a personal account called ERRRC created the repo, pushed its last commit less than two hours later, and never touched it again. The account was registered in 2021 and has 108 followers. For the next 12 days, it had zero stars.

At 47:9 29 Sep (Beijing time) on X, the Chinese resource account @knowledgefxg ("知识分享官") posted:

> "An open-source repo organizing China's civil service Xingce past papers, covering national and provincial exams from 2016 to 2026, with a large question bank: 515 papers and nearly 60k questions, plenty of material... Can be opened in Obsidian, or read in VS Code's preview mode."

The tweet got 142k views. The repo gained 52 stars that day, 373 the next day, and 119 on the first day of National Day. Someone in the comments said something very accurate:

> "It feels like the people on GitHub and the people prepping for civil service exams are almost two separate groups."

That line is the key to the whole thing.

### What it actually is

The README's first screen says:

> "515 papers / 58890 questions, covering 2016–2026... stems, options, answers, and official explanations, all complete. All images are stored locally, so it works offline."

- Organized into six modules: political theory, general knowledge, verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, logical reasoning, and data analysis, with one note per module per paper.

- 39,463 images (question stems for figure-reasoning questions, formula images in explanations) all live in the repo, and the full download is about 340MB.

- Includes a "Distillation Methods Reference" on how to have AI split questions by topic and compile question-type statistics.

- No license, no web version, no app. It's just a folder.

One caveat: the 58,890 figure is inflated. A downstream project that used it as a data source (GongkaoNaoku) downloaded the whole repo in October 2 and compared it question by question: joint-exam papers get adapted and reprinted in each province's paper, and after deduplication there are only about 25k to 27k unique questions, with 57% of lines being duplicates. This doesn't stop it from being shared, though: every repost copied "515 papers / 58,890 questions" as is.

### How the stars came

Matching each day's star gains against who shared it (star counts from GitHub daily snapshots and trendshift.io):

| Date | Stars gained | What happened that day |
|---|---|---|
| 9-17 ~ 9-28 | 0 | Unknown |
| 9-29 ~ 10-01 | +52 / +373 / +119 | 知识分享官 posted on X (142k views) and published the same text on WeChat Official Accounts; resource navigation sites, Telegram channels, and the Sina blog post "Smooth Practice Even Offline" followed |
| 10-02 ~ 10-20 | 10–40 per day | Long tail; 10-13 national exam announcement, 10-14 registration begins |
| Around 10-21 | +200 or so in one day | Source not found; likely a WeChat Official Account or Xiaohongshu |
| 10-23 | +156 | GitHubDaily posted on X (12.3k views, 157 bookmarks) |
| 10-24 ~ 10-28 | 70–100 per day | Resource and tutorial sites reposted it; 10-24 national exam registration deadline |
| After 10-28 | 20–35 per day | Weibo tech blogger Ban Shu (repost 126), AI blogger Zhang Dayue |

The opening of GitHubDaily's tweet states the repo's selling point most clearly:

> "Friends preparing for civil service exams probably have several prep apps on their phones, and some charge for access to question explanations."

By Nov it had 6,2,287 stars and 431 forks. The fork-to-star ratio is about 19%, which is common for resource-type repos: people are taking the material away to use.

Three things stand out. First, the author never showed up: no posts, no replies on issues. The spread was driven entirely by the "free civil service exam materials" angle itself. Second, the two peaks landed right on National Day study season and the national civil service exam sign-up period, which is a huge audience that shows up every year on schedule: 2026 national exam applicants passed review, 3.72M people (figure cited from Zhihu). Third, the ones sharing it weren't programmer accounts but resource-sharing accounts that share anything: X knowledge-sharing accounts, WeChat Official Accounts, Weibo bloggers, resource navigation sites, and Telegram channels. What they need is something that's free, has a big number, and can be explained in one sentence.

### Why this one got shared

1. **It matched a grievance everyone already had.** Prep apps like Fenbi and Huatu charge for explanations and memberships. Nearly every repost copy talked about "saving on material fees" and "explanations without paying."

2. **A number that's easy to copy.** "515 papers, nearly 60k questions," "plenty of material," copied verbatim in every repost.

3. **Simple format.** No app to install, no sign-up, and it still works offline. A tech blogger can explain it in one sentence and plug Obsidian along the way.

4. **Gives AI bloggers a reason to share.** The "distillation method" adds an AI angle; 52dhw's tutorial title even reads "with an AI distillation approach".

### Who else is doing the same thing

| Project | Scale | Compared with alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Civil service exam quiz apps: Fenbi / Huatu / Offcn etc. | Industry leaders | More complete questions and mock-exam stats, but explanations and memberships are paid, and it needs a connection |
| AdministrativeAptitudeTest | 687 stars | Zip archives of exam PDFs, up to 2024, no per-question lookup, no explanations |
| yunduanqiqu | 558 stars | Cloud-drive style resource dumps, mostly essay and interview prep |
| coder2gwy / developer2gwy | 27.7k / 11.5k stars | A civil service exam guide written for programmers, with no question bank |
| ERRRC/kaogongzhentizhengliu (same author) | 1,060 stars | Notes tagged by topic in depth, only two modules done |
| GongkaoNaoku | 83 stars | Uses it as a data source and wraps it in spaced repetition |
| gwy-zhenti | 20 stars | Same idea, covering both Xingce and Shenlun, but started in October with a small volume |

(Star counts from GitHub data, early November)

A string of followers has already piled in: seven or eight repos copied almost verbatim, including wsrabbit and czywork; xiaogaostu/xingce-app (offline Android quiz app); and someone built a phone quiz PWA for reasoning and data analysis from scratch. In the repo's issues, 10-26 someone put the questions on a website, "no login, free online," and the same day another person asked whether the data could be used for a small program with ads. The Chinese civil service exam (Xingce) slot already has people in it.

The author's own funnel is worth a look too. Under the same account there is a quiz app repo, kaogong-shuati, which states the question bank "copyright belongs to sources such as Fenbi" and claims authorization (unverified), and has only 163 stars. The 2,287-star repo didn't bring many people over: people wanted free questions, not another app.

### If it were you

**The verdict:** This playbook is copyable, and you don't need your own account: pick an exam that millions of people take each year, turn the stems, answers and explanations into an offline-readable open format, put a big number in the title, and release it just before registration or the exam, and Chinese resource-sharing accounts will repost it for you. Xingce is already taken, but other exams are nearly empty on GitHub: search for teacher certification, the bar exam, CPA, public institution exams, and you won't find a decent structured question bank; postgraduate entrance has only some PDF collections. The two bets are: can you get a complete question bank with explanations and a traceable source, and once you have it, will rights holders file takedown complaints?

**Who it suits:** People who have just passed a given exam and have organized past papers and explanations; developers who can write scripts to convert PDFs and web question banks into structured Markdown; people who want a high-star project that breaks out of the niche for their résumé.

**Who it doesn't suit:** Anyone who wants to make another Xingce version: seven or eight reskinned copies already exist and nobody is reposting them; anyone who can't get explanations and can only post stems and answers, since "explanations are free" is the reason people repost; anyone hoping to make money from it: the author's own quiz app has only 163 stars, and this kind of repo earns stars and reputation, not users.

**How to do it:**

1. Two things to check when picking an exam: many people take it every year (teacher certification, postgraduate entrance, bar exam, CPA, CET, public institution exams are all in the millions to tens of millions), and there is still no structured question bank on GitHub.

2. Fix what the Xingce version got wrong: deduplicate questions and state the true question count, so downstream users don't find it inflated; add a license and source notes; build a web version that opens directly, since most candidates won't use Obsidian. The "put it on a website" post in the issues is the evidence.

3. The source is the biggest pitfall: official public past papers, explanations you wrote yourself, and clearly authorized material are the safest; whole banks scraped from commercial apps draw complaints the more stars they get.

4. Write the README's first screen around: a number (how many papers, how many questions), one line like "stems, answers and explanations all included, works offline", and three steps to open it.

**How to get traffic:** You don't need your own account. On the day of release, DM or submit to Chinese resource-sharing accounts: knowledge sharers on X, GitHubDaily-type accounts; WeChat Official Account resource accounts; tech bloggers on Weibo. Then drop the link into several resource directory sites and TG resource channels. Open the copy with the pain point ("explanations still cost money"), then the number. Candidates are on Xiaohongshu (RedNote); if you can post a note yourself about a "free open-source question bank", the +200 from the Xingce version's 10-21 that had no traceable source most likely came from places like that (inference).

**When to go before:** Ride the exam calendar. Postgraduate entrance preliminary exams are in late December, too late to finish a full bank, so release one subject first (for example English or 408). Teacher certification written exams and provincial joint civil service exams fall around March next year (inference; check official notices), so January to February is the best release window. The novelty of "civil service question bank on GitHub" fades within those two months, and the more there are, the less resource accounts will want to repost.

**What would show you misjudged:** Resource accounts repost it, but a week later stars are still under two or three hundred, meaning the Xingce version's stars came mostly from the millions taking the national exam, and small-exam audiences can't sustain it; or the Xingce version itself gets taken down within the year, meaning the copyright risk of this path is higher than it looks, so switch to using only official public papers and writing explanations yourself.

[GitHub repo ↗](https://github.com/ERRRC/xingcezhenti)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fenbi / Huatu / Offcn and other quiz apps | iOS | Years | Industry leaders, with registered users in the tens of millions (unverified) | They charge for explanations and memberships and need an app and a connection; this one is free, offline, and open data, and its questions most likely come from the Fenbi bank |
| Yaoyuan-Zhang319/AdministrativeAptitudeTest | Open source | 2023-06 | 687 star | They offer zip archives of exam PDFs up to 2024; this one is structured per question with explanations, covering up to 2026 |
| hwlvipone/yunduanqiqu | Open source | 2024-09 | 558 star | They are cloud-drive style resource dumps, mostly essay and interview prep; this one is a structured Xingce question bank |
| coder2gwy / developer2gwy | Open source | 2020/2021 | 27.7k / 11.5k stars | They are a civil service exam guide for programmers, with no question bank |
| AI skills such as kaogong-skill / kaogong-study-tracker / xingce-review-pro | Open source | 2026-03 to 06 | 70–320 star | They do AI tutoring and review, without a large question bank; this one just gives the data |
| ProfessorZhi/gwy-zhenti | Open source | 2026-10-08 | 20 star | Same idea (Markdown past papers for people and AI to read), but started later and smaller |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **X Chinese resource-sharing account @knowledgefxg** : 2026-09-29 tweet, 142k views, the same text also went out on the WeChat Official Account; +373 stars the next day

- **Verified** **X @GitHub_Daily** : 2026-10-23 tweet, 12.3k views, 157 bookmarks, the copy hit the "explanations still cost money" pain point; +156 that day

- **Verified** **Weibo tech / AI bloggers** : 10/1 Sina posts; Zhang Daiyue (AI blogger) 10/28, Ban Shu 10/30 (reposts 126)

- **Verified** **Resource directory sites / TG channels** : acgfav 9/30, xiangleshare 10/1, ytzy 10/22, 52dhw 10/26 tutorial, tg.okhk.net

- **Verified** **Platform event: 2027 national exam registration** : national exam notice 10/13 released, registration 10/14–10/24; 10/21–10/24 was the second peak

- Inference **Trigger for the 10/21 +216** : not found; likely a WeChat Official Account post or Xiaohongshu

## ERRRC/xingcezhenti: why an open-source Xingce past-paper bank reached 2.3k stars

> Research date 2026-11-06. Channel: GitHub. Data card: gh_ERRRC/xingcezhenti.

### One line

It turned 2016–2026 national and provincial Xingce past papers (515 papers, 58,890 questions, 39,463 images, with answers and official explanations) into an offline Obsidian / Markdown library, free on GitHub. The stars didn't grow out of GitHub circles; they came through Chinese "resource-sharing accounts" (knowledge sharers on X, GitHubDaily, Weibo tech / AI bloggers, resource sites) reposting to civil service candidates. The two surges landed on the National Day study season and the 2027 national exam registration period (10/14–10/24). Its edge is simple: **volume, official explanations, free, offline, no app to install** . That is why it took off; the technology itself sets no barrier.

### 1. Basic data

- Built 2026-09-16, then pushed the same day and never updated again (pushed_at 2026-09-16). As of 11-06:2,287 stars / 431 forks (GitHub API, 11-06). The fork-to-star ratio is about 19%, which is common for resource repos: people fork or download to use for themselves.

- Daily star growth (trendshift.io/repositories/268815):
    - 9/17–9/28:0 stars, with only sporadic forks (the author's small circle or search traffic).
    - **9/29 +52, 9/30 +373, 10/1 +119** : the first wave.
    - 10/2–10/20: a daily long tail of 10–40.
    - **10/21 +216, 10/22 +132, 10/23 +156, 10/24 +87** : the second wave, then 60–75 a day, falling back to 20–35 a day after 10/28.

- Never on GitHub Trending, and never in Trendshift's top 25 (trendshift page). All traffic came from outside the platform.

- The author ERRRC is a personal account, registered in 2021, with 108 followers. Three more repos sit under the same account: kaogongzhentizhengliu (judgment reasoning / data analysis notes regrouped by topic with in-depth tagging, 1,060 stars, created 2026-09-14), kaogong-shuati (civil service quiz app, "no money, what exam to take", 163 stars, created 2026-08-29), fastxiaoliuren (Xiaoliuren divination, 4 stars).

### 2. Where users came from (growth tactics)

| Timeline | Channel | Evidence | Corresponding star gains |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-29 13:47 UTC | X account @knowledgefxg, "knowledge sharer" | Tweet: "An open-source repo organizing China's civil service Xingce past papers... 515 papers, nearly 60k questions, plenty of volume", 142k views (x.com/knowledgefxg/status/2104931141719658841); the same text also went out on the WeChat Official Account (indexed by todayrss) | 9/29 +52,9/30 +373 |
| 2026-09-30 / 10-01 | Resource directory sites, Telegram channels, Weibo | acgfav.com indexed 9/30; xiangleshare 10/1; tg.okhk.net channel post; Sina Weibo 10/1 post "Smooth quiz practice even offline, 515 Xingce past papers organized" | 10/1 +119 long tail |
| 2026-10-13/14 | Platform event: 2027 national exam notice 10/13 released, registration 10/14–10/24 | Xinhua, Beijing News 10/13 | Attention generally rising |
| 2026-10-17 | X @fhwofjow51260 "Namі Knowledge Base" | "Civil service exam prep crowd found a goldmine! ...Prep saves a big chunk on study material fees" (trendshift social mention) | Small |
| 2026-10-21 | **No specific source found** | +216 that day, two days before the GitHubDaily tweet, so there was probably another repost (guessing an Official Account or Xiaohongshu) | +216 |
| 2026-10-22 | Resource site ytzy.net | "Civil Service Exam Xingce Question Bank: 2016-2026 sets, 515 questions total, with official explanations" |  |
| 2026-10-23 00:00 UTC | X @GitHub_Daily (a major Chinese GitHub recommendation account) | The tweet opens with: "Friends preparing for the civil service exam probably have several quiz apps on their phones, and some charge for explanations". 12.3k views, 157 bookmarks (x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2113420149885972566) | 10/23 +156 |
| 2026-10-26 | 52 dhw.net tutorial | "Xingce Past Exam Download: 515 sets, 58890 questions, open-source project tutorial (includes AI distillation methods)" |  |
| 2026-10-28 / 10-30 | Weibo AI blogger Zhang Dayue, tech blogger Ban Shu | Ban Shu's repost 126, comments 30 (sina.cn 5359798122188255, 5358972618932656) | Keeps daily star growth at 30–70 |

Conclusion: there's no ad spend, and no sign the author promoted it personally. Spread came from the "free civil service study materials" topic spreading on its own: Chinese resource-sharing accounts (X, Official Accounts, Weibo, resource directories, Telegram channels) reposted it on sight. Also, under the 9/29 tweet, someone replied: "Feels like the GitHub crowd and the civil service crowd are almost two separate waves." So each repost moved something from GitHub to the civil service crowd, a group that had seldom encountered open-source content before and converted well once they clicked in.

### 3. Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Civil service exam quiz apps: Fenbi / Huatu / Offcn etc. | iOS / Android | Years | Industry leader, with tens of millions of registered users (exact figure unverified) | A more complete question bank with set-building and stats, but explanations and membership are paid, and you need to install the app and be online. The xingcezhenti questions appear to come from banks like this (the author's other repo kaogong-shuati states that tiku.db "copyright belongs to Fenbi and other source holders") |
| Yaoyuan-Zhang319/AdministrativeAptitudeTest | Open source | 2023-06 | 687 star | Packages past-exam PDF archives, up to 2024, with no per-question search and no explanations |
| hwlvipone/yunduanqiqu | Open source | 2024-09 | 558 star | Cloud-drive style collections, mostly Shenlun and interview material, not a structured question bank |
| coder2gwy / developer2gwy | Open source | 2020/2021 | 27.7k / 11.5k stars | A civil service guide and methodology written for programmers, with no question bank |
| ERRRC/kaogongzhentizhengliu (same author) | Open source | 2026-09-14 | 1,060 star | Tagged by knowledge-point depth, only two modules done, the "distilled version" of this repo |
| jangviktor-web/GongkaoNaoku | Open source | 2026-10-02 | 83 star | Uses this repo as a data source, wrapped in an SM-2 spaced-repetition quiz system |
| KeWang0622/kaogong-skill, KaguraNanaga/kaogong-study-tracker, liuyuexi1987/xingce-review-pro, etc. | Open source (AI Skill) | 2026-03 to 06 | 70–320 star | An AI skill pack for generating, explaining, and reviewing questions, without a large question bank of its own |
| ProfessorZhi/gwy-zhenti | Open source | 2026-10-08 | 20 star | Illustrated Markdown past papers for Xingce and Shenlun, "readable by both humans and AI". Same idea, but started later and smaller in volume |

### 4. Why it charted

1. **Real need plus timing** : the 2026 national exam passed review with 3.72M applicants (figure cited in a Zhihu Q&A); 2027 national exam notice published 10/13, registration 10/14–10/24, written exam usually late November. The two star-growth waves fell on the National Day prep period and the registration period.

2. **Using "free" to go head-to-head with "paid explanations"** : nearly every repost's copy says "save on study material fees" and "explanations are free" (GitHubDaily, Namei Knowledge Base). Questions, answers, and official explanations are all included, which is its biggest difference from earlier PDF repos.

3. **Big volume, easy-to-remember numbers** : "515 sets / 58,890 questions" became the headline number every repost copied, selling "plenty for everyone".

4. **Convenient format** : Markdown with local images, opens in Obsidian or VS Code, works offline, no app to install, no sign-up. For tech bloggers on X and Weibo, it's an easy topic to talk about.

5. **Rode the "AI distillation" topic** : the bundled "Distillation Methods Reference" gave AI bloggers a reason to repost (Zhang Dayue is an AI blogger; the 52 dhw tutorial title mentions "AI distillation methods").

### 5. Differentiation

Compared with paid apps, it differs in being **free, offline, and your data is yours** ; compared with older open-source PDF repos, it differs in **per-question structure, official explanations, and coverage through 2026** . That gap is why it took off. But there's no technical moat here. What's scarce is having a complete question bank with explanations, and that bank likely came from Fenbi.

### 6. Visibility and copycats

- Visibility: **circulating in niche circles** . Major Chinese X accounts (knowledge-sharing account 140k views, GitHubDaily 12k views), several Weibo bloggers, and resource sites reposted it. No mainstream media coverage, and not on GitHub Trending. Open-source project, no revenue involved.

- Copycats and reuse have already appeared: GongkaoNaoku explicitly states its data comes from this repo; wsrabbit/xingcezhenti(10/24), czywork/xingceshuati, mytangyh, RedStarWithGit, WawaGuess, keatonHua, zhudao and others are repos copied as-is; xiaogaostu/xingce-app(10/28, an offline Android quiz app, 22,298 questions) and ProfessorZhi/gwy-zhenti are similar follow-ups.

### 7. What's worth borrowing

- The play of "taking content locked inside paid apps and exporting it in open formats (Markdown / Obsidian) for free" would work just as well for postgraduate entrance, teacher certification, the bar exam, CPA, and other major exams. Spread would run through Chinese resource-sharing accounts, with zero ad spend.

- Used an eye-catching number as the title (515 sets / 58,890 questions) so people would repost it.

- Used a free data repo to draw traffic, then offered the author's own quiz app and AI explanations on top (the author's kaogong-shuati). But judging by stars, funnel conversion is weak: 163 to 2,287.

### 8. Uncertain

- The specific source of the 10/21 day's +216 was not found (possibly an Official Account or Xiaohongshu, unverified).

- Copyright of questions: kaogong-shuati claims "authorized by the source holder", unverified. If Fenbi and others file DMCA takedowns, the repo could be removed.

- Author identity and whether they bought ads or pushed it themselves: no evidence found.

- Stars don't mean people are actually using it for practice. The high fork ratio shows many people downloaded it, but actual usage isn't visible.

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.