Recently, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other departments have issued policy documents to abolish the malpractice of "five standards for profession elevation", with special emphasis on removing the "five standards" orientation in academic assessment. So, what are the problems in the academic assessment system of China, what are the reasons, and how to solve them? After combing the existing literature, we find that:at present, the evaluation of academic achievements in China is susceptible to the rank of authors or units. Personal interests and unit interests are related to the assessments. The units' academic assessment system is affected by policy documents issued by government departments at all levels, and there are blind areas in the evaluation of interdisciplinary academic achievements. After analyzing, the orientation of academic assessment indicators issued by evaluation institutions around the world, the academic assessment systems established at all levels of teaching and research institutions, and the relevant systems for subdividing academic achievements according to disciplines and majors, are causes for the ill practices mentioned above. Drawing on the successful experience of academic assessment in developed countries and taking the purpose of China's academic assessment into consideration, we suggest re-examining China's academic assessment system, so as to improve it and encourage scholars to have more meaningful and high-level academic achievements, where removing the standards of essays only doesn't mean absolutely abandoning essays as an indicator in the assessment.