| Questions preview in listening comprehension tests poses controversy in practice. Examining tests like TEM 4, CET 4 or CET 6, which are widely used on college students, and international tests such as TOEFL or IELTS, we find that there is a great discordance on the issue of questions preview. This may lead us to wonder whether there should be a uniformed way in dealing with the question preview issue and how this method of testing affects the test results. Although a lot of research has been done to study comprehension process in listening, little has been carried out on this method of testing, questions preview.An examination of the construct of listening comprehension suggests that questions preview may affect comprehension positively by focusing the student's attention or supplying information about the text, or negatively by interfering with subjective comprehension processes, increasing the burden on the attention or imposing shallower processing. Alternatively it may have no significant effect. The quantitative effect on test results is predicted for each possibility. In the study, 30 subjects took listening tests three times, one with no question preview, and the other two with explicit instructions for questions preview. Subjects also completed questionnaires designed to elicit reactions to each test. Results showed that tests with questions preview produced significantly more correct answers. Questionnaire responses indicated that subjects felt that tests with questions preview facilitated comprehension. It is concluded that previewed questions can help the testees better understand the text and can lead to better performance. These results suggest that questions preview should be encouraged as an effective learning strategy in listening teaching and be administered as a good method of testing in CET 4 or CET 6 as well.
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