| It is now widely acknowledged that, in China, the writing ability of non-English major college students is relatively low. In order to solve this problem, many experts, scholars, and teachers have written numerous books and articles and conducted a lot of related research, which covers the existing problems in EFL writing, various factors affecting EFL writing, and discussion of different teaching methods, etc. However, few efforts have been invested in finding a solution to this problem by reforming the CET-4 writing subtest.As a large-scale and influential national test, CET-4 has contributed a great deal to enhancing the effectiveness of college English teaching and learning. However, its writing subtest has been criticized over the years due to its rigid test format, monotonous test types, and simplified scoring criteria. Therefore, the author of the present paper attempts to design a writing task according to the communicative language testing theory and tries to makes a comparison between this task and the more traditional "three-paragraph" writing task for the purpose of obtaining the subjects' attitudes toward and feelings about these two types of tasks and their writing samples. To achieve this goal, the author employs three instruments: questionnaires, interviews, and writing tests.The results of the research show that a majority of the subjects hold a favorable view on the communicative writing task and suggest it be adopted in the future CET-4. Meanwhile, the statistical results also indicate that the subjects score significantly higher on the communicative writing task than on the "three-paragraph" writing task in terms of "content", "language" and "cohesion." As for "structure" and "grammar," they display no significant differences.It is hoped that the results of the present research may provide valuable implications and useful guidance for syllabus design, course design, college English writing instruction and assessment, and the reform of CET-4 writing subtests.
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