| IELTS (International English Language Testing System) Academic Reading test is a communicative language test designed to assess whether an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) candidate is capable to study in the medium of English at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. It is now taken by over 1,000,000 people a year across 120 countries. A prominent feature of IELTS (Academic) Reading test is its rich variety of testing formats, including Multiple-Choice, Gap-filling, Short Answer Question, Gapped Summary, Information Transfer, Matching Tecniques and True/False/Not Given. NMET (National Matriculation English Test) is the entrance examination to colleges and universities conducted once every year in China, the number of participants in which reached 10 million in the year 2007. The reading testing formats frequently used by NMET include Multiple-Choice and Multiple-Choice Gap-filling. Despite the importance of these two tests, few studies have been conducted to investigate the extent to which they are valid tests of English reading ability of the EFL candidates. And so far there isn't any comparative study on the reading testing formats of the two large-scale tests.To find out the possible implications that IELTS reading tests might bring to the construction of the NMET, the researcher raised the following two research questions: 1) what reading sub-abilities are tested separately by the NMET and IELTS (Academic) reading tests? 2) Are certain testing formats better than others in testing NMET candidates'EFL reading ability as a whole? If there are the differences, which format(s) can better (than other formats) or best test EFL reading ability in the NMET context?In response to the above research questions, the researcher conducted an empirical research among 1460 Senior Three students in 14 high schools from 8 cities of Shandong Province, China. The instruments adopted by this study include a Mock NMET Reading Paper, a past IELTS (Academic) Reading Paper, seven self-designed reading papers, a questionnaire and a set of statistical procedures. Factor Analysis was used to answer the first research question; Correlation Analysis, Frequency Analysis and Descriptive Statistics were used to answer the second research question.The general findings of this study suggest that: The NMET and IELTS (Academic) reading tests can basically test the reading comprehension abilities theoretically hypothesized, and the two tests are to great extent valid tests of the test-takers'reading ability; However, IELTS Reading (A) Paper tested more of"expeditious reading"and"critical reading"than did the NMET Mock Reading Paper. Moreover, participants'performance on different testing formats was significantly different. Generally speaking, Gapped Summary, Short Answer Question, Information Transfer, and Matching Techniques are more valid testing formats than Multiple-choice Gap-filling, Multiple Choice and True/False/Not Given. Gapped Summary ranks as the most valid testing formats while True/False/Not Given ranks as the least valid testing formats in testing NMET participants'EFL reading ability. So the implications suggest that: 1) it is advisable for the test developers to consider which testing formats to be used in accordance with the purpose of the test and multiple testing formats are recommended by this study; 2) Generally speaking, the NMET test developers are recommended to gradually supplement the traditional testing formats of Multiple-choice Gap-filling and Multiple Choice with the more valid formats of Gapped Summary, Short Answer Question, Matching Techniques and Information Transfer, while taking into considerations of practical reasons and some other test method factors such as the different choices of passages, the types of questions designed on the text as well as the merits and demerits of each testing format.
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