The widespread availability of books gave scholars from poor families the opportunity to study for the examinations, and as people became used to having more books around their reading habits began to change. Previously, readers worked from hand-copied texts which they perused from beginning to end, but now they learned to skim through books, dipping in and out as they wished.
書籍的普遍，不但使得寒門弟子都有讀書考試的機會，由於人們手上的書多了起來，過去一本手抄本要從頭讀到尾的讀書習慣也有所轉變，變成翻閱或是跳躍式的閱讀。