This article seeks to clarify the purpose of high-stakes exam and its relationship with teaching and learning by elucidating the educational thought of the eminent neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi. The paper contends that Zhu Xi views standardised testing as an essential means to evaluate the learning outcomes, honour exemplary scholars and select suitable persons for official positions. But he rejects exam-centred teaching and learning that promote rote-memorisation and neglect self-cultivation and self-transformation. The paper further delineates Zhu Xi's broad-based and integrated educational programme that is aimed at learning for the sake of one's self through experiential learning, personal inquiry and mindful reading. The essay concludes by highlighting the contemporary implications of Zhu Xi's ideas: they inform the ongoing debates on the usefulness and impacts of high-stakes exam by situating standardised testing within a larger educational agenda that is geared towards self-improvement and personal transformation.