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The College Entrance Exam 2007: An Evaluation.
By: Marcus Johns. M.A, B.Soc.Sc.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to talk about the college entrance exam. Now, as you've just been told, this is a joint paper. Examination Papers of 20 Provinces and Municipalities, I think it was 20, were studied by 4 foreign experts at English Coaching Paper to assess the level and appropriateness of language education in China. The authors were Dr. Yvonne Griffith, who comes from UK; Ms Mary Anderson, who comes from America; Miss Pauline Richardson from Canada, and yours truly, I'm from New Zealand. At the bottom of the screen you'll see, it says the Department of Foundation Studies at the University of Waikato. Now I'm just going to tell you where I come from, where I have been before coming to China. In 2002-2003, just before I came here, I was teaching in a university in New Zealand and I was teaching foreign students. 90% of them were Chinese.
The general idea, the general belief I suppose, of my peers, of my colleagues at university was that Chinese students could write quite well, but they could not speak. The level of oral English in 2002 was very low. The level of written English was not too bad, but the oral level was very low indeed. I came to China in late 2003, and I worked in a middle school and at a university before working at English Coaching Paper and I have changed my opinion. Chinese students can now speak quite well, but they seem to have lost the ability to write. I think maybe the Chinese education system changed its focus at some point, decided to concentrate on oral English and moved away from teaching students how to write. So I'm in a unique position here where I can speak to you as someone who's taught in a middle school, taught at a university, and taught foreign students. So I have a series of experiences with Chinese students.
Now onto the main topic of today! The general presentation of the draft we were given was very poor indeed. There were numerous examples of poor layout and poor punctuation. But I'm not going to talk about this because that was too large an issue to cover in this short lecture and was generally sorted out by the time the students were given the exams. These were only drafts but every paper contained spelling mistakes! Every one! No exceptions. Furthermore, every paper contained examples of poor grammar and inappropriate sentence structures. Every one! And the drafts of the papers all contain incorrect answers. Again, every single one! And of the listening materials, once more, of the 20 questions in the national listening materials, five of the given answers were wrong. The draft of the Ningxia paper, which contained 75 questions or so, had 29 incorrect answers. That had been sorted out by the time students got the exam though. In fact, lots of provinces used the national listening materials. Most of the drafts had the correct answers, but the national draft, for some reason, did not. I don't know why. 5 out of 20 incorrect answers is 25% wrong. That's far too much.
Many provinces used the standard, national listening materials, some chose not to. This led to a variable standard nationwide. A few provinces made an effort to use more up-to-date English, for example, Guangdong. This was good. English has changed over the years. The way we speak English today is much different to what it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 30 years ago so it's a good thing if listening materials contain modern language because that's what you'll hear. If you go overseas, you'll hear people speaking in the modern tongue. Unfortunately, lots of listening materials contained unnatural language, unnatural phraseology, things people just would not say. For instance, here's one example from the National Listening Materials which was used by a lot of provinces. And it was in the examination in this form. This is talking about a language class; it's an introduction to a language course. We can most probably hear this talk in the class of the English language. Nobody would say that. In an English language class, that's the way will be said. The question itself contains bad grammar Where can you probably hear this talk, that's a present continuous tense, it should be in the past tense, where could, where would. There were lots of phraseology errors like this in questions as well. As you can see, I have a lot of paper here. I hope you don't want me to give you more examples. I hope I have enough examples on the PowerPoint display, because these are lots of paper to go through.
Now another one, question 20, Shandong, national listening materials:
Why is the class so popular?
A) It is not offered each term;
B) It's taught by Professor Morris;
C) It helps to master some useful rules.
The given answer to this was C. Nobody would say this. This is very unnatural English. It helps students to master the rules of grammar; that's the natural way to say this. But no-one would say It helps to master some useful rules; this just wouldn't be said. The wording in option A is also incorrect. It is not offered each term. It should be every term, it's not offered every term. And why does one option say it is, and option B say it's? You need some consistency. It should be consistent throughout.
Some listening materials contain confusing or inconsistent dialogue, for instance Tianjin text 6:
Sorry to call you. But I just delivered my new computer. I am afraid I can't lift it by myself. Could you give me a hand please?
That's a very, very confusing sentence. Because if the speaker has just delivered the computer, which she says she has, one assumes that she must have carried it from the shop, in which case she must have been able to lift it. But you don't deliver your own goods, you bring them home. So Sorry to call you. But I just delivered my new computer. I am afraid I can't lift it by myself is extremely confusing sentence. It makes no sense. There is also a problem with one of the questions relating to this dialogue in which an inference is made that is not appropriate to the information given in the dialogue. The story is the woman needs assistance carrying a computer upstairs, the man says OK, I'll just finish what I'm doing. I'll be down in a minute. The question is what's the man doing? There's no way in the world you can know what the man is doing. We are not given that information so, an inappropriate question.
A few papers appear to have no listening component at all, for example Shanxi. But it's hard to be certain about that because we didn't see a draft of Shanxi. And the reproduction of the actual test paper was of very, very poor quality and had to be read it with a magnifying glass. And as you can see my eyes are not the best anyway. So maybe it did but I did not see it. And if it didn't, we'd all be astounded by that because listening is really the key component to language acquisition. The more you listen, the better your language will be. You must have listening component. So if a university entrance exam does not have a listening component, I am absolutely amazed. But I could not find it. Possibly it was on another paper that I didn't see. I hope so. But I can only judge on what I saw.
Another criticism that came mainly from Dr. Griffith, was that she felt the dialogues in many papers were not long enough. They weren't a challenge because they were not long enough; sometimes two lines, often three. That's not enough. They should be longer than that. We all feel that a dialogue in a university entrance examination should be no shorter than four or five lines. Two lines really will not challenge a student at all. It's very, very easy. So, Dr. Griffith insisted that I mentioned this here. We understand that an effort was made to prepare students for longer dialogues but we all feel that two or three lines is too short. OK, we know that you start off with these short dialogues and move on to longer ones, but two lines are not short dialogues, two lines is nothing. So maybe there should be a minimum of four or five lines in each dialogue.
Now also Dr. Griffith felt that many of the questions relating to the listening materials were far too easy. The examples we got here comes from Hubei's paper, Question 2:
Hello, this is Peter Smith. I am not in at the moment. Please leave your message on the answering machine. Thank you.
Nobody would say this so it's unnatural English as well. No-one would specify Please leave your message on the answering machine. You would just say please leave your message and I'll get you back later or something like that. Because it must be obvious to the speakers that they are speaking to an answering machine and I'm not in at the moment. So it seems to me that this line on the answering machine was just added to make it just a little bit easier for the students to understand. And it makes it too easy. I'm not in at the moment gives all the information that is needed.
Hi Peter. This is Mary here. Have…have a lunch sometime next week? Call me back, thanks.
That's a strange way of putting it, a strange way of leaving a message on the answering machine as well. But:
What do we know about Peter Smith?
A) He is having lunch at home;
B) He is out at the moment;
C) He is talking with Mary.
Very easy! Too easy!
Now there're also some positives in the listening. Questions in some papers related to inference, to the implied meanings behind the dialogues, rather than mere information gathering. So what the dialogue actually was saying, rather than just picking out words, that's a positive, that's really good. We all feel that should be encouraged far more because if students can understand the inference of a dialogue, their going to understand much better and their English is going to improve so we all think it is a major positive to have students use the words and have to think about the meaning, rather than just trying to recall the words that has been said. So this is very positive and should be encouraged in the future because it shifts the emphasis of understanding to the context of the entire dialogue rather than merely the words used in it. So the student has to use his or her brain. They have to think, and thinking will help them. If they have to think about the meaning, they'll remember the words as well. If it's just pulling out a word or two from a dialogue, the rest of it is forgotten and becomes a waste of time. So the more questions related to inference, to implied meaning, the better. It's a very good idea. An example here, from Hubei, Question 1,
What's your name please?
Zhang Ling.
What's the purpose of your visit?
I am a student. I will be attending an English learning program at the University of Chicago.
Why does the woman want to go to America?
Good, it makes students think. The students have to think about the whole dialogue, the whole context. And they will remember many more of the words than they just have to answer a question like what's the woman's name or something.
However, many multiple choice questions had more than one correct answer, for instance, Jiangsu Question 22:
She looks very happy. She have passed the exam.
I guess so. It's not difficult at all.
The options you got are should, could, must, might, and you could probably use any of them. Also, the question itself contains errors. Because the statement contains past tense, she looks happy, the exam must be finished, I guess so. It's not difficult, that's a present continuous tense. So we have one past tense and one present continuous tense, and it doesn't work. It's, this is one thing that lots of the Chinese people get wrong. It's is the contraction of it is, not it was. You can not use it's to mean it was, that does not work. So: She looks very happy. She should, could, must, and might have passed the exam. I guess so. It was not difficult or it wasn't.
Another example, from Liaoning Question 26:
Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the British Museum?
Sorry, I'm a stranger here.
A. Thanks anyway.
B. It doesn't matter.
C. Never mind.
D. No problem.
All of them! Anyone of them! Not a problem with anyone of them. They are all perfectly good. Some questions like this asked the students to choose the “best answer”. And we all feel that this is unfair, because in the above example there is no best answer. They are all perfectly good. There's no problem with anyone of them. I mean, if I were a student and I might think OK, No problem, and select option D. I'd be marked as wrong and I'd be a bit upset because it's not wrong.
Now, some questions contained no acceptable answer. For example in the National test Question 30:
Does the meal cost $50? I ________ something far better than this!
A.prefer
B.expect
C.suggest
D.suppose.
None of them really! The subject is the cost of the meal, thus it must be in the past tense. So it can't be “I expect”. I can't see anyway you could put that into a present or future tense. It must be a past tense. Somebody is angry about the cost of the meal and is the complaining of the price and quality; it should be “I expected better than this”.
OK, now duplication of answers. In a few, there were a few occurrences where the same thing was said using different words which duplicated the answer. For example, Guangdong Question 14:
In what way is the jobs section on the Times useful to the local people?
A.It carries job ads from the local businesses.
B.It is the place where local businesses hire people.
Both mean the same thing in this context. There's no problem. The place does not necessarily have to refer to a geographic location. Employers may place an ad in the newspaper to hire new staff so you can say that that is where the staff are from; they came via the newspaper. No problem. So the answer is duplicated. It says the same thing in just slightly different ways. Another example; Anhui, in their Example Question to show students how to answer the questions:
How much is the shirt?
A. $9.15 B. $9.15 C. $9.18
Which one would you choose? One of them is wrong. The same answer. That's just a typing error. But it happens.
Now, a few questions contain poor sentence structure, sentences that were constructed very poorly, very badly. Quite a few questions were worded incorrectly or used the incorrect tense. Anhui Question 15:
In my opinion, life in the twenty-first century is much easier than ________
A.that used to be.
B.it is used to
C.it was used to
D.it used to be
None of them! The subject here is the twenty-first century. The twenty-first century is now! Life now can not be easier than it used to be, now, so you have to use a past tense. The answer should be ‘than it was in the past' or ‘in previous centuries'. The twenty-first century is now, so life can not be easier now than it was now. That doesn't make sense.
Now there were a number of bizarre questions, strange questions, which while not necessarily incorrect, were the type of sentence that you'll just never encounter. For example: Beijing Question 21:
This is a junior school. You should go to a senior school for girls of your age.
Where would you ever hear that sentence? You'll never encounter I t. Or Shanghai Question 31:
The little boy came riding full speed down the motorway on his bicycle, what a dangerous scene it was!
Well, no, a little boy would not ride down the motorway on a bicycle. You cannot take a bicycle onto a motorway, it doesn't happen. A motorway is restricted for cars, nobody would ride a bicycle on motorway. It just would not happen.
Guangdong Question 42:
By quoting the remarks of a being from another planet the author intends to ________ .
This comes from a reading. By quoting the remarks of a being from another planet, if you quote something, somebody must have said it. So the being from another planet must exist. Nobody can quote from a being from another planet because we do not know there are any beings from other planets. Not possible. These are examples of bizarre questions: things that you would never come across.
I'll now move on to the Reading Comprehension Component. A wide variety of texts were used some of which were appropriate and challenging but the level varied widely. Often, continuity was a problem. Certain provinces used comparatively simple listening and vocabulary sections but followed them with complex, specialized reading material. A case in point would be Liaoning. Liaoning's listening and grammar was quite simple, but some of their readings it presented to students were quite difficult. Others had challenging reading alongside others that were far from appropriate, for instance the second National test. There were two national tests, the second of which contained two readings that were of an appropriate level but three that would be more suited to a junior middle school entrance exam. They were very, very low in quality and not challenging at all.
There were also a number of factual errors in some of the readings that could confuse students. One example, several papers had a reading that placed the Grand Canyon in Colorado, for example Jiangsu Text C. The Grand Canyon is not in Colorado, it's in Arizona and Utah. Yes! The Colorado River runs through it but the Grand Canyon is not in Colorado.
Some tests contained more serious factual errors, for example, Liaoning's reading comprehension contained an article about rain-forests in which different types of rain-forest were described. At one point it said whilst talking about clouds:
“These clouds protect the forests from the daytime heat and night-time cold of nearby deserts…”
I didn't study geography to any great level, but I'm pretty sure that you do not get rain-forests nearby deserts. They are diametrically opposed to each other. One you have rain, one you don't. So if a student was not confident in his or her English, but was good at geography, and read that question, I feel sure that they would think their lack of understanding resulted from a misunderstanding in their English. You don't get rain-forest nearby deserts. It doesn't happen.
Another one from the Liaoning test: “Human brains were known to decide the final death”.
This was given as one of the answers to a question. Human brains were known to decide the final death. That means somewhere in your brain, it says you are going to die at the set time on a set day. Maybe October 13th, 2007, at 3:15, my brain will decide it's time for me to die. No, that does not happen. It's incorrect.
Some readings, however, had obviously not been proof-read thoroughly and, as a result, contained passages of a very, very, very poor standard. Shandong Questions 56-59 has this painful reading:
It sounded a good to her return, but I replied, thinking him for his exceptional generosity, then we ________ to go back. Then the University of Florida offered to let him house to me. While he want to England on his one year, paid leave.
What does this mean? I've read this many times and the first sentence is still incomprehensible. I have absolutely no idea what it means. The punctuation is terrible and the reason for the blank is not clear. There is no question relating to it. So it just has not been proof-read. Because there's no way in the world this would have got into the exam if it had been. This was not just in the draft. It was in the exam. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Other articles appear to have been either translated directly from Chinese into English or to have had certain words and sentences rewritten, possibly because the original vocabulary would be unfamiliar to the students. Unfortunately, this has lead to them being incorrect and in unnatural English. For example, Chongqing Text A:
“Before his death he had carefully prepared his will as to how his wealth would be settled-to sell his entire collection at an auction”
As to how his wealth would be settled, unnatural. It doesn't mean anything. It should be something like and established how his estate should be settled. You settle the estate, you don't settle wealth. Wealth is just money, you can't settle money. An estate is everything you own. Probably; the editor of this test paper thought that the students would not understand the word estate in this context, they probably had not encountered it, so he or she decided to replace it with another word that he or she thought was correct. But, unfortunately, it's not. It does not work.
Little further done in the same article:
“the old servant who had served the son and loved him, and who for emotional reasons…”
What emotional reasons? An emotion is a thing like hate, or love. This is not talking about emotions, this is talking about sentiment. So the word should be sentimental. Again, it's probable that the editor thought the students would not have encountered the word sentimental before and has consulted a thesaurus and found an alternative; emotional, but it doesn't work in this context.
Some articles, although overall of an acceptable standard, contain redundant phraseology that is not in common usage anymore and could be considered as “flowery” or old-fashioned. The example here comes from Jiangxi, Text A:
“I fled, but in vain. He overtook me, served me violently, and threw me (into) the deepest part of the pool.”
Who would ever say that? If you spoke like this in a western country today, people would think there was something wrong with your brain. They will think you were crazy. A more modern translation of that passage would be that “I ran, but he caught me, hit me, and threw me into the pool.” That's much more acceptable than I fled, but in vain. It's just not likely to be said like this anymore; 50 or 60 years ago, maybe, but not anymore. If one was writing poetry, it is possible that you might want to use words and phrases like this. But this is not poetry, this is an examination.
Now! Oxymorons are one of my pet peeves. They really annoy me. A couple of examples from Liaoning:
“The rainfall can reach at least 98 inches a year.”
Can reach at least? Can is a maximum. Something can get to something. At least is a minimum. You can't put the two together. It doesn't work. You can't have two things that mean complete opposite put together. So can reach at least is an oxymoron and extremely poor English.
Some of the questions that relate to the readings left something to be desired as well. We all believe that questions that relate to the inference or context of the passages are very positive but, occasionally; questions were posed that did not encapsulate the meaning of the passage. For instance, Chongqing Question 65, the reading was about the life of Rosa Parks. I'm sure you all know who Rosa Parks was, that woman who started off the movement for a racial equality in America by refusing to give up a seat on a bus to a white passenger. The question was:
The political impact of Rosa Parks lies in the fact that she…
A) helped Condoleezza Rice achieve political success
She didn't do that;
B) Joined the civil rights movement at a young age
She didn't do that;
C) made racial equality a common value in American society
She didn't do that;
D) set a good example in her early life for other black Americans
She didn't do that either.
So there was no correct answer here. Nothing that really encapsulates what the author tries to say. The author credits Rosa Parks with being the character who started the civil rights movement. The given answer here the C, make racial equality a common value in American society. Rosa Parks started off the civil rights move, which in turn has, arguably, made racial equality a common value in America but Rosa Parks didn't do this so none of these options really encapsulates the meaning.
In a few cases, we believe that the selected reading was too difficult. Jiangsu Text D is an article about the process of thinking which discusses medical terms that would confuse an untrained native English speaker. I feel sure that any Chinese student answering the questions related to that reading would have had to read them over many more times than once or twice, I had to. And in a time-limited examination situation, this would put them at an unfair disadvantage to students from other provinces that had easier readings. This article talked about the brain and discussed concepts of cerebral development and anatomy. I don't recognize some of these words, I don't use them. So, unless a student intended going to medical school, they will probably never use the terms cerebrum, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, or parietal lobe again. I don't think I will ever use them in my life, except for today.
Occasionally, we saw evidence of editing mistake as well. It is apparent that, in a few papers, reading material had been taken from a longer, primary sources and edited down or was merely a segment of a longer passage. However, references remained in the passage to information that was no longer there which, we feel sure, would confuse students. An example of this would be the cloze in the Guangdong paper which is obviously a segment of a longer article and which cites a previously referenced source (Crave) that remains in the reading, and it has no relevance to the segment the students are presented with. This should have been removed. “Crave says” that means I've already mentioned Crave in the previously in the article and I'm mentioning him (Sic) again. This particular part, this particular segment from the cloze doesn't need to refer back any previously cited information, so it's just going to add excess confusion and be something else that will confuses students if you leave reference to material that you have removed.
Now! The cloze. Personally, and this is just my own point of view, I'm am not a great believer in the effectiveness of cloze as an examination tool because, by there very nature, they are asking students to pick the “best” answer when, as often happens, there is more than one option that will be perfectly acceptable or, at the other extreme, only one answer is remotely possible which ends up making the task too easy and this again proved to be the case. A case in point would be the cloze in the Fujian paper which, with its 20 cloze options, had 4 with more than one potential answer and 4 that were incredibly simple but it would be unfair to single this out as no cloze was immune from this problem. On the other hand, the cloze in the Sichuan paper contained 5 questions where we believe better answers existed for than any of the options given. So, cloze, I don't think are particularly good. That's just my point of view. Because you are asking the students generally to choose the best answer, if there is only one possible answer and the rest of the options aren't sensible, it's too easy. Otherwise, it's likely to be unfair. So I don't like cloze. That's just my opinion. I do believe that they are very good learning tools, but I do not think they are a great examination device.
The error correction was generally quite well done. Everybody's error correction was pretty good. There was a good balance between grammar areas and vocabulary areas. Occasionally, the text itself contained an error or a confusing sentence. For instance, Liaoning Question 81:
Before I could answer him, he continued to ask me the name of the fish on another one plate.
You got two problems in that, not just one. You can't continue to ask somebody about something different, it doesn't make sense. You continue to ask him questions about the fish on the plate, that's fine. But you can't say before I could answer him, he continued to ask me questions about another, that doesn't make sense. He started to ask me questions about another; that makes sense, or he continued to ask me questions; that makes sense too, but not about another thing. Not all exams had an error correction component, but those that did, did it quite well.
Now! The writing task! This proved very hard to evaluate because, generally, the directions for the task were given in Chinese. None of us reads enough Chinese to be able to understand them successfully. The quality of the sample answers, however, varied wildly. Shanxi's sample was quite good whereas Hubei's gave a weak sample. Others tended to be rather repetitive, which is not so much of a problem in spoken English, you can speak repetitively, but when you write, it's not good. It should be avoided. You should try to vary the language you use when you write English because it might be extremely boring to the readers for one thing. So you don't continually repeat the same thing over and over and over again.
Our general evaluation was that there was too much multiple choice. Most examinations contained about 70%+ multiple choice. If you use that much multiple choice, you won't really get a fair idea of the level of your students, because with multiple choice the answers can be guessed. To be able to answer a multiple choice question maybe you only need to know basic words. So it was generally considered that about half as much multiple choice would be appropriate. Maybe 35%, 70% is too much. If you do use multiple choice questions as an examination technique, it is vital that each question has only one acceptable answer and all potential answers should make sense. Because if students are presented with nonsensical answers the task is devalued as it becomes too easy. If an answer can very obviously not be one of three presented options, it only leaves one possibility and it is not multiple choice anymore. It's just one real choice.
And it was also generally believed that there was too little emphasis on translation. Most papers had little, and in some cases no, translation. What translation there was tended to be from English into Chinese, none from Chinese into English. More of a focus on translation would require students to use more of the skills that they have acquired throughout their years of study. Translating short passages from Chinese into English requires them to use a much wider vocabulary and would also test their knowledge of grammatical structures. Translations from English into Chinese tests their reading and comprehension skills by requiring them to gain a full understanding of a passage before successfully translating it back into their mother tongue. Translation is a very, very good tool. But we believe it's underused.
Many examination papers displayed a lack of continuity. I think I've mentioned this before really. Many test contained simple grammar but complex reading material. We all feel that the level of expectation should be the same throughout the entire examination. Readings should compliment the grammar and the listening section of the examination; they should be of the same or similar level. We wondered where many of the articles came from. We feel that many have been drawn directly from the internet. If so, it should be pointed out that much of the material on the internet is of poor quality and should not be used as a teaching resource without being thoroughly checked. Don't think that everything on the internet is good. This is not the case. More often than not the reverse is true.
Factual correctness is extremely important. When examinations are in preparation it is imperative that they are factually correct. It's not enough to just be proficient in English if you are going to use specialized readings. Because it could be confusing to students who are strong in certain subjects but lack confidence in English if readings give inaccurate information because they might assume that they have misunderstood the English. For instance, with that reading from Liaoning, about rain-forest in deserts, if a student is weak, or presumes himself to be weak, in English but good in geography, reading articles that contain factual inaccuracies will lead to the assumption that his English is to blame so, for fairness sake, examinations need to be factually correct.
Now, proof reading. It appears many of the draft exams were merely proof read for spelling mistakes and no attention was paid to the appropriateness of the answers. I say this because the drafts that we saw had many spelling mistakes, lots of them, but when it came to the exam actually being presented to the students, 95% of the spelling mistakes had been corrected. But most of the questionable answers and poor phraseology remained. If they had been proof read by a native speaker, maybe these problems would have been picked out. Furthermore, it seems that, in some provinces, no one has proof read many of the articles as some contained passages that were incomprehensible. For instance, Shandong, nobody could have proof read that. That would never have got through if it had been proof read. Any native speaker would have picked it up.
It is vital that all exams are checked in their entirety. All sources: because if you get sources that come from the internet, the chances are that they could quite easily be wrong. S all sources need to be checked. You can not give the internet blind faith! You can't believe that everything on the internet is correct and in good English, it might well not be. Moreover, all sources should be checked by a native speaker before being finalized because, had they been, many of the problem would have been identified, like those in the Shandong exam.
Now! The suggestions. I don't know that much about the Chinese education systems, I don't know how it works; I don't know the role of the government, so these suggestions may well happen anyway.
Firstly: standardization. The possibility of one standard national test should be examined. This would give a better indication of students' ability. Provincial variants could be taken account of by universities. So, one test for the whole of China, and the universities in the provinces could decide on the level that they would require for the entrance. It seems most inconvenient than every province has its different test and we wonder why this is deemed necessary.
Another idea, suggested by Ms Anderson, was that China should investigate the plausibility of establishing an independent testing authority, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. These are standard in many countries and are responsible for the development of examinations. So you may well have this, I don't know, I'm just assuming that you don't. But an independent Testing Authority as part of the Ministry of Education that establishes the tests, and by doing so they can make changes to them year by year to improve the quality and appropriateness. By each province having its own test, there doesn't seem to be any clear centralization so we assume that China does not have such an organization. I'm not sure, I might be wrong, but this is how it appears.
Now, obviously, proof reading, as I said, is vital. It's imperative that all exams are proof read by a native speaker before being given.
We believe there should be less multiple choice questions. I don't think this would be too hard to achieve. It could be that a portion of the exam is set aside for short answers or open questions which will assist students to improve their reading /listening and use the vocabulary that they possess. So we would all support using questions that encouraged short answers, answers of three to five words or so. We also believe that there should be more focus on inference and context. If you must have multiple choice, it's far better to phrase the questions in such a way as to require students to fully understand. Thus, focusing on inferred meaning is far more beneficial than mere information gathering.
We think the exam needs more translation. How much more remains an open question. Some of us felt that translation should comprise 40% of the test. Personally, I feel that 40% is too much. I feel that a balance possibly would be achieved at 25 to 30%. But, definitely a lot more than you already have now. This would hopefully help to balance Chinese students' ability to speak and write because the more translation they have to do, the more writing they'll have to do. I feel that 10 years ago China must have concentrated its English curriculum on writing skills rather than on spoken English. You've changed your focus now and concentrate on speaking, and possibly the balance has tipped the other way now. If you bring in bit more translation, I think that will help to correct the imbalance that we feel now exists. We hope so, anyway.
So, to summarize! The listening materials contained lots of unnatural English. Many incorrect or debatable answers were given. Some dialogues were confusing and often too short to be challenging. Some questions were too easy. Questions that relate to inference or context are positive and should be encouraged. In the grammar and vocabulary sections, many answers were debatable. Some poor sentence structures and bizarre questions were used. Reading comprehension sections were widely variable in levels and quality. Some were too difficult, some contained factual errors, some were not proof-read. Some redundant language was used, and there were some editing mistakes. Cloze often contained debatable answers, sometimes no appropriate answer. Error correction sections were generally good but there were some minor mistakes. The written task was hard to evaluate. Samples were of variable quality and, occasionally, too repetitive.
And to avoid being repetitive myself, I'll say that's it. Does anybody have any questions? No? Thank you for listening ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon.
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