Test Specifications for CET-4 (June, 2015)
Test Purpo
College English Test Band 4(CET4) is the norm-referenced and criterion-referenced test which is designed to asss college students’ English proficiency accurately and objectively. It focus the test of overall ability including writing, listening, reading and translating skills and so on. CET4 aims to promote the implement of syllabus and level of English teaching.
Test Domain
Theoretical Construct:
To test students’ ability to listen verbal information, process information and solve problems in reading text, translate Chine into English accurately and frequently and express one’s idea correctly and clearly in English.
Test Takers
Test takers are the undergraduates and graduates who have finished the college English Band 4 curriculum required by syllabus.
Test Method
Discrete-point test and integrative test are ud in combination with emphasis on the latter.
Test organization and weighting
Component | Content | Question Type | Percentage Score(%) | Time Duration (minutes) |
Writing | writing | writing | 15% | 30 |
Listening comprehension | conversations | short conversations | multiple-choice questions | 8% | 30 |
long conversations | multiple-choice questions | 7% |
passages | short passages | multiple-choice questions | 10% |
dictation | Words and phras dictation | 10% |
Reading comprehension | banked cloze | cloze | 5% | 40 |
long passage reading | matching | 10% |
reading in depth | multiple-choice questions | 20% |
Translation | Chine-English Translation | passage translation | 15% | 30 |
Total | 100% | 130 |
| | | | | |
Test Administration
The students should be informed of the procedures of test administration beforehand. Test instructions should be read to student before the test. When the test begins, the students should first finish the writing ction on Answer Sheet 1 within 30 minutes. Later, when Listening Comprehension begins, students should write their answer on Answer Sheet 1. 30 minutes later, supervisors should collect the Answer Sheet 1 within 5minutes and students should finish the rest of the test on Answer Sheet 2.
Supervisors are expected to administer the test strictly in accordance with the stated procedures.
Measures should be taken to maintain a supportive testing environment throughout the test.
Specifications for Writing
Test purpo
The writing test is a proficiency test designed to asss students’ English Writing ability.
Test domain
Theoretical Construct:
To test students’ ability to produce different types of English writings in limited time as required in the syllabus.
Operations:
a)Be able to produce writing at an efficient rate of speed and required number of words to suit the purpo
b)Be able to produce correctly spelling words and u appropriate words and phras
c)Be able to u acceptable grammatical system, patterns and rules
d)Be able to express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms
e)Be able to u cohesive devices in written discour
f)Be able to u the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discour
g)Be able to develop the writing logically
h)Be able to appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form.
Test content
Text types:
Picture description, form completion tasks, letters, reports, advertiments, notes, argumentation, etc.
Topics:
history, customs, culture and society, school life, environment, technology, etc.
Focus:
Test task should focus on checking students’ ability to express particular meaning with grammatical system and develop the writing logically and cohesively and coherently, with more emphasizes on the communicative functions of written texts.
Test task and item type
Type | Expected Respon | Mode |
writing | constructed | written |
| | |
Time duration
The test should be completed within 30 minutes.
Scoring criteria
13-15 points. The passage is relevant to the given topic and express the idea clearly with coherent writing, and without linguistic errors, or only with few errors.
10-12 points. The passage is relevant to the given topic and express the idea clearly with relatively coherent writing. But the passage has a small number of errors.
7-9 points. The passage is basically relevant to the given topic. Some expressions are not clear enough and the discour is barely coherent with a large number of linguistic errors, especially some of which are fatal.
4-6 points. The passage is basically relevant to the given topic with unclear expressions of ideas and a large amount of fatal errors. The discour is poorly coherent
