A Comparative Study On English Testing System Of College Entrance Examination Between Jiangsu,China And Victoria,Australia

Testing is generally considered as a traditional and important way of evaluating teaching and learning,which is valued by both society and individuals.English language testing is an important part of National Matriculation Test(NMT)in China and Victorian Certificate of Education(VCE)exam in Australia.Numerous researchers and scholars have devoted to studying English testing system in China or testing system of other subjects in Australia,but few have made a comparison of English testing system between Jiangsu and Victoria,which is left as a virgin area.In order to fill up this gap,this paper is undertaken to investigate the similarities and differences of English testing system in Jiangsu,China and Victoria,Australia through material analysis.The research questions addressed in this thesis are:1)What are the similarities and differences in English Testing Time between Jiangsu,China and Victoria,Australia?2)What are the similarities and differences in English Testing Contents between Jiangsu,China and Victoria,Australia?3)What are the similarities and differences in Scoring Methods of English testing between Jiangsu,China and Victoria,Australia?The materials used in this study are exam papers of 2017-2019 from Jiangsu Matriculation English Test(JSMET)and English As an Additional Language(EAL)of VCE.What is more,New English Curriculum Standard(NECS)and Study Design,a kind of Curriculum Standard of VCE are both used to evaluate the four basic skills in the two testing systems.Besides,the VCE EAL exam reports of the previous three years from Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority(VCAA)and the syllabus of JSMET are adopted to support the research.In addition,the author also resorts to the VCE EAL Year 12 Insight and VCE EAL Exam Guide as a help to finish the research.Detailed analysis of the relevant materials yields the following findings.Firstly,in terms of Testing Time,both JSMET and VCE EAL final examination take place around the beginning of summer with JSMET is on June 8th and VCE EAL exam is at the end of October or the beginning of November when it is approaching summer in Australia.However,the time duration of VCE EAL final exam is 3 hours,plus 15 minutes’reading time while that of JSMET is 2 hours,which shows that the time duration for VCE EAL exam is much longer than that of JSMET.Besides,no extra reading time is given for the students who take JSMET to read the exam paper.Secondly,both testing systems examine the students’ ability in speaking,listening,reading and writing skills,all of which make up the First,the students of both testing systems are supposed to take the speaking test ahead of the final examination and the fluent and communicative use of oral language is the ability assessed in both testing systems.However,the VCE EAL students need to focus more on the persuasive effect of their oral content in influencing the target audience while those who take JSMET put more emphasis on the accuracy and property of language.Secondly,in terms of listening test,an increasing number of open questions are made for the candidates of both testing systems.The difference of this part lies in that students who take VCE EAL exam need to be examined about their control of language while the students who take JSMET do not need to worry about how to organize their language when they have three options to choose from.Thirdly,in the part of the reading materials chosen by JSMET and VCE EAL exams involves similar types,such as argumentative writing and narrative writing.However,the issues involved in reading materials of JSMET cover from technology to education while those of VCE EAL exam are mainly about local issues in Victoria.Finally,in terms of writing skills,the similar aspect of both systems is that students need to develop their own piece of writing based on the given material or text.However,the students’ ability to interpret a literary work or analyse the author’s use of language and justify their understanding with appropriate evidence is emphasized more in VCE EAL testing system.On the contrary,the students who take JSMET are expected more to present their opinion and use proper evidence to support their understanding.Finally,there are more differences than similarities in terms of Scoring Methods.The total marks of JSMET is 120 marks,which include 20 marks for Listening,15 marks for Multiple Choices,20 marks for Cloze,30 marks for Reading Comprehension,10 marks for Task-based Reading and 25 marks for Writing.However,the total marks of VCE EAL final exam is 100 marks which are distributed to three sections.Section A(Listening to Texts)takes up 20%of the total marks,Section B(Analytical Interpretation of a Text)and Section C(Argument and Persuasive Language)accounts for 40%of the total marks respectively.What is more,the final score of the students who take JSMET is completely decided based on the score of the final examination.However,for VCE students,their final score comes not only from the final examination,which accounts for 50%of the final score,but also from the School-Assessed Coursework(SAC)of Unit 3 and Unit 4,which takes up 50%of the final score.In light of the findings,this paper makes some pedagogical implications for English teachers of Chinese curriculum and VCE EAL teachers.For the teachers teaching English of Chinese curriculum,they should make more open questions to assess the students’ ability in Listening,Speaking,Reading and Writing in order to cultivate the students’ potential in processing information.For the VCE EAL teachers,they should provide more materials involving various issues for the students to assess their reading ability and should not restrict the issues within one community.