General Record of Imperial Examination Success in the Song Dynasty(herein after referred to as the General Record)is a fundamental research on the imperial examination of the Song Dynasty. With information of over 118 placards and 40 thousand scholars who were raised to the rankings in the Song Dynasty and more than 10 million words, this newly published book is at present the largest database of the elites in the Song Dynasty. The 40 thousand scholars who made arduous efforts and passed the imperial examination were social elites who played important roles in Chinese politics, military affairs, economy and culture. They could not be ignored if we want to know or make a study of political history, intellectual history, military history, history of education, history of literature, and social history of the Song Dynasty. The biographical data of the book are composed for all the scholars we can find who were raised to the rankings, offering documentary evidence and covering multiple information as follows:Chinese style name and alternative name, native place, whether there were officers among one's family members in three generations or not, the particular year in which a scholar was raised to a ranking, the initial official position, successive official positions, the highest official position or the last official position and the posthumous title. The General Record builds retrievable profiles for those who raised to rankings during the Song Dynasty, and it contains a large number of stored multiple information which make further multi-angle researches possible. The researches such as the openness and mobility of the bureaucratic origins, the area distribution of Presented Scholars during three hundred years of the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination and the regional economy, the imperial examination and the vicissitude of the imperial examination families, the imperial examination and local culture and education can be different according to various requirements.The General Record is a new dynamic to the imperial examination research. For the vicissitude of the imperial examination families, educational circles have been paying close attention to the prominent families such as Sun Clan of Meishan, Zeng Clan of Nanfeng, Chao Clan of Chanzhou, Ge Clan of Jiangyin, Han Clan of Yongqiu, Chong Clan, Yu Clan who relied on the imperial examination, moral, and articles to maintain their prosperity for a long time. And readers can discover a net of figure relationship by obtaining information about imperial examination families, relatives and in-laws from the General Record. Thus, solid evidence is furnished to explain the formation of the imperial examination society in the Song Dynasty. The main form of former researches were case studies, but by using this book, we can sort out the imperial examination family materials in a more systematic way and discuss the space distribution characteristics of those families, their vicissitudes, and the distinctions among them. If combined with regional development study, the research will be transferred from a static regional distribution research to a dynamic regional development study. For the distribution of Presented Scholars during the Song Dynasty, the book was made up in chronological order as well as region catalogs. When uniting the two methods above, in another word, by combining time and space, the research field and ideas would be widened. What's more, the book provides valuable historical materials related to the ancient East Asian cultural exchanges and demonstrates that the imperial examination made contributions to the East Asian Confucianism cultural circle.This thesis focuses on the three above-mentioned issues, by taking those illustrations, seeks to discuss the relationship of the fundamental research provided by the General Record, and provides an innovative research on the imperial examination of the Song Dynasty.