Based on field studies in five East Asian societies, the paper has three research agendas of portraying mass tutorial schools. The first is to depict those similarities and differences between functioning, infrastructure and popularity of East Asian tutorial schools by means of a 3-layered cultural model and six descriptive indicators. The second is to articulate some distinctive socio-cultural features of tutorial schools in an East Asian comparative perspective. The final aim is to pinpoint examination-oriented knowledge and value transformation in mass tutoring throughout three processes of cultural change, all of which pose challenges to East Asian educational reforms in the 21st century. (Contains 3 endnotes.)