The guange ti, the style of the halls and pavilions, was the standard regular script of the Qing court. Every character had the same shape, size and stroke weight, written black, square and glossy. The examinations required it. A candidate who did not write the standard style could not enter the Hanlin Academy.
The papers of the palace examination were not recopied by clerks before marking. According to Chinese Wikipedia, the candidate’s handwriting therefore often decided the result, to the point of “suppressing the composition and valuing the calligraphy.”