The listening score of CET-4 and CET-6 increased from 20% to 35%.
Hangzhou Daily, September 16 th, as a national unified college English test band 4 and band 6, the number of candidates is gradually increasing. In recent years, the question pattern and score allocation of CET-4, CET-6 and English syllabus for postgraduate entrance examination have been changed again and again. Since the implementation of new questions last year, there have been some changes and trends in the questions. What new challenges will these changes bring to candidates?
Yesterday (15th), the annual seminar of domestic examination project of New Oriental Education Technology Group was held in Hangzhou. Senior tutors of CET-4 and CET-6 have discussed and analyzed the latest reforms and trends of CET-4 and CET-6 and postgraduate English.
CET-4 and CET-6 focus on listening and speaking ability.
The reform of CET-4 and CET-6 has changed a lot, and more and more attention has been paid to testing students’ comprehensive English level. In the past two years, the number of CET-4 and CET-6 exams has gradually increased, and the number of college students applying for exams has gradually increased.
Since the publication of CET-4 and CET-6 in September 1987, the authority of its achievements has become a stepping stone for many employers to recruit talents, so that the number of people applying for CET-4 and CET-6 has increased year by year. In 1987, there were only 100,000 people in the first exam, and by 2004, the number of people taking the exam in CET-4 and CET-6 exceeded 11 million. This shows that students, universities and even social workers are enthusiastic about the importance of certificates.
Compared with the old questions, the new questions are more difficult, among which the biggest difficulty is listening, followed by the increase of subjective questions. Changing the reading score from 40% to 35% of the total score, and expanding the listening from 20% to 35%, is a big challenge for college students in the traditional classroom environment.
In addition, the types of questions have also changed greatly. The score of subjective questions may increase from 25% in the previous exam to more than 40% in the total score. Reading has changed from multiple-choice questions to multiple-choice questions and fill in the blanks with words. Fast reading is a combination of true and false sentences, which increases subjective questions and increases difficulty. In the comprehensive part, error correction, text question and answer and translation are added. Error correction only appeared in CET-6 before, and statistics show that the scores of the national CET-6 candidates who corrected the errors are usually less than 3 points.
In this regard, experts say that if the usual oral dialogue practice is a kind of "embellishment" in the past, then the examination after the new questions requires college students to use English more, instead of simply repeating the dialogue mechanically in the English corner, they should do more in-depth dialogues with people with high oral English level, and understand the meaning and usage of words and sentences in the context, which will be of great help to the examination.
The big framework remains the same, but the exam is more "detailed"
Postgraduate entrance English test is the most difficult English test in China. As soon as the new syllabus for postgraduate entrance examination in 2008 was introduced, it attracted the attention of many candidates. Compared with last year, the new syllabus in 2008 has not been greatly adjusted, and the content and structure of last year have been maintained from vocabulary to topic setting, but more detailed and in-depth requirements have been put forward in some aspects.
Grammatically, the syllabus for the postgraduate entrance examination has not put forward very detailed requirements for grammar knowledge over the years. However, judging from the examination style in recent years, the investigation of grammar points tends to syntax from morphology, and no longer pays too much attention to parts of speech and collocation, but focuses on syntactic knowledge such as comparative sentences, and changes from the investigation of single grammar point to the comprehensive application of grammar, such as the investigation of conjunctions forming complex sentences in gestalt and the investigation of clause division and modification judgment in translation.
Lexically, since 2005, the Chinese definition of words has been deleted from the syllabus, which shows the change of English knowledge requirements for postgraduate entrance examination to a certain extent. For candidates, a vocabulary of about 5,500 does not only mean rote memorization, but also requires candidates to understand obscure Chinese concretely in combination with vocabulary usage and context, rather than copying it mechanically.
In reading, the outline still emphasizes the understanding and grasp of the main idea of the article and the author’s intention and attitude, the understanding of the concepts and the speculation of new words in the article, the screening and definition of specific information in the article, reasoning and judgment. Therefore, candidates still need to further improve their understanding of the content and the meaning of the text on the basis of laying a vocabulary and solving long and difficult sentences.
In writing, practical writing has been increased since 2006, which further clarifies the requirements for candidates’ English language ability. Candidates should accumulate and use appropriate vocabulary according to the writing content, and practice the corresponding sentence patterns. (Ai Danqing)
Editor: Li Dan