狀元 Simplified: 状元 On the HSK 7-9 vocabulary list, at CEFR level C2. zhuàngyuán ㄓㄨㄤˋ ㄩㄢˊ top scorer in the palace examination (highest rank of the Imperial examination system) top scorer in college entrance examination 高考[gao1 kao3] the most brilliantly talented person in the field fig. leading light Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0 国际中文教育中文水平等级标准, 中华人民共和国教育部, MIT