The Study Of Validity Of Vocabulary And Structure Of College English Test Band 4

The validity of a test is by far the most important criterion by which the test is measured. It is of great importance for a test to be of high validity when the test has great effect on the society and the teaching and learning.College English Test (CET) is a norm-referenced large-scaled standard test based on the syllabus of both teaching and testing , whose influence is by far the biggest among all the language tests in China today. CET affects not only the college English teaching and learning across China but also the society to a large extent. It has been 17 years since the first CET4 (College English Test Band 4) was put into effect. Due to the great influence of the CET, it has aroused a hot debate about the CET. Some debates focus on the influence of the CET on the society; some on the testing skills and method ; some on the language ability and language acquisition. This article is not supposed to join in the discussion of the influence or language acquisition but to technically study the validity of one part of the CET--vocabulary and grammar and structure.There are three main stages of language tests before Bachman put forward the model of communicative approach . The first stage is the time before the regular and formal language testing theory was formed, which is called pre-scientific period. The second stage is the time when psychometric-structuralist theory was formed ,which is based on the theory of behaviorism. The third stage is the psycholinguist-sociolinguist testing theory which is based on the cognitivism. It is on the psychometric-structuralist theory that the discrete point testing method was based. According to the explanation of the structuralist, the language can be broke down into various small components such as the vocabulary , grammar , structures and so on. It is possible to test the language learners' ability in terms of the vocabulary, grammar and structures respectively. Based on this theory, this article is supposed to conduct a study of the validity of vocabulary and grammar and structures of CET4.Validity is one of the most important criteria of a test. Whether a test has fulfilled its purposes, the validity of the test should be taken into consideration. Validity can be divided into different category based on different standard. The main validity of a test can be concluded as follows: the content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity, predictive validity , and face validity. As for the validity of language test, Bachman, Palmer, McNamara, Nunan, Spolsky and other linguists have made detailed explanation in their works. So far as the validity of CET is concerned, Yang Huizhong and C. Weir are the two distinguished scholars who conducted experiment in 1995 to test the validity of the exam and concluded that the CET was a test of high validity and reliability. Since the CET is a syllabus-based exam, the change of teaching syllabus and testing syllabus in 1996, 1999, and 2003 should surely have a great effect on its testing material, especially in the vocabulary and grammar and structures because the changes mainly focus on the expansion of the vocabulary . It is the reason that the paper deals with the validity of the vocabulary and grammar and structure of CET4 between 1996 and 1999.As one part of the whole examination, the vocabulary and grammar and structure also has an influence on the other parts of the examination such as the reading comprehension, writing and listening. Furthermore, the vocabulary and grammar and structure affects the teaching and learning of College English. The paper is also supposed to put forward the correlation and implication of vocabulary and grammar and structure to the other examination parts and college English teaching and learning.