Abstract: With the view of adapting to the market economy, it is necessary to improve the existing method of cigarette external quality evaluation. The main contents were:1) raising the total scores of external quality and carrying out necessary adjustments on some factors affecting the batch rejection for external quality; 2) evaluating the key index with combination of mean value and standard deviation or the coefficient of variation; 3) stressing the weights of different packing defects; 4) changing from lab inspection to the combination of consumer appraisal and lab inspection; and 5) eliminating the test error and raising the reliability of test results.