A Comparison Between PETS-5 Reading And CSC-ET Reading With Reference To Ielts Reading

Each year, China Scholarship Council (CSC) will provide scholarship to qualified candidates for further studies or academic researches abroad. Most candidates are teachers from universities or doctors from hospitals. To obtain the qualification, they have to take either PETS-5 (Public English Test System– level 5) or CSC-ET (China Scholarship Council English Test). PETS-5 is a public test, claimed to be communicative in nature, for anyone who wants to assess his/her English level, set at the level equivalent to the completion of two years of English as a major study. CSC-ET, however, is a communicative test exclusively designed for the purpose of assessing whether anyone taking the test is competent enough for further academic study abroad. It can only be taken after one semester of language training at one of the state designated centers.In this case, these two tests serve the same purpose. Therefore, the question arises as to which one performs better in assessing candidates'English communicative ability. This paper is part of a research project concentrating on the examination of their academic reading ability. In order to explore this, an empirical study is conducted by having 80 candidates take both of the two tests. After that, both qualitative and quantitative comparisons are made to find out the merits and demerits of each test. In the analysis of the two test papers, research theories of communicative language testing and reading are applied and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is particularly referred to, as it is known worldwide as a valid communicative test for anyone wanting to pursue academic study in an English-medium university. And finally, after a relatively thorough analysis, conclusions are drawn and suggestions are put forward for further improvement.