| Research on language testing shows that both testing and teaching are closely interrelated. The effect of testing on teaching and learning is known as the washback effect. The impact of test operates at two levels: a micro level, in terms of the individuals who are affected by the particular test use, and a macro level, in terms of the educational system or society (Bachman and Palmer, 1996:29-31). The Test for English Majors Grade 4 (TEM4 for short) is a criterion-referenced test aimed at assessing students' ability to use the English language. Being one of the subjective items of TEM4, the writing item accurately reflects the students' written English competence. Yet, relatively little research has been done to date about the washback effect at the micro level. Most research about it has been carried out at the macro level. Therefore, the author finds it necessary to investigate the washback effect of the TEM4 writing item on the second year English majors' written English competence. To reach this aim, a coaching for the TEM4 writing item was designed by the present researcher. The coaching plan was induced by the composition evaluating criteria laid down by the TEM4 Testing Center. In turn, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the impact of the coaching for the TEM4 writing item on the second year English majors' written English performance.Three approaches are involved in carrying out the present research: questionnaire, statistical analysis and corpus-based investigation. Of the three approaches, the corpus-based study is the focus. For the purpose of this research, the composition data of 60 samples were collected from two terminal examinations, which were taken by the students in the same class before and after the coaching for the TEM4 writing item. Before the corpus-based study is carried out, 60 composition data are collected as text files in the computer. Among which, 30 composition data were collected before the coaching, which is called data I; the other 30 composition data were collected after the coaching, which is called data II. The original composition data is not obtainable in the present research because the TEM4 Testing Center keeps them. The TEM4 Testing Center focuses the composition evaluating criteria on communication and accuracy to evaluate the candidates' written English performance. Owing to this factor, the author considers it desirable to investigate the second year English majors' written English performance inquantity and quality from 3 aspects (vocabulary, topic sentences and cohesive devices) based on the criteria of communication and accuracy. The corpus-based study is assisted by the corpus search tools named Wordsmith and Vocabproflle. The findings from this are as follows: (i) The frequency of words at higher bands (band 2-4) in data II is higher than that in data I; there are fewer spelling errors in data II than those in data I; the type/token ratios between data II and data I are significantly different, (ii) The students tended to use more topic sentences in data II than they did in data I. (iii) There are more cohesive anaphoric and conjunctions in data II than those in data I.Based on the results of data, the present thesis discusses the differences between the quantity and quality of the 3 investigated aspects: the students' ability of mastering vocabulary in different bands, the students' ability of using cohesive devices and the use of topic sentences. It also tries to illustrate the positive impact from the coaching for the TEM4 writing item on the second year English majors' written English performance. This is exemplified by the 2 conclusions from the research findings: (i). The command of the words at high bands is crucial to the quality of the compositions in data II. (ii). The topic sentences and cohesive devices contribute to the unity and coherence of the compositions in data II.It is sincerely hoped that the research methods adopted in the thesis will cast light on other EFL teaching research in China...
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