| The origin of the cloze test can be attributed to W.L.Taylor (1953) who took it from the gestalt concept of"closure", (the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves.) which refers to the tendency of human beings to complete a pattern once they have grasped its overall significance. [21]Taylor employed cloze test as a device for measuring readability of texts. He proposed its use as a test of reading comprehension. Cloze test is usually a paragraph or more in length, from which certain words have been deleted. In such tests, testees are required to supply the missing words, using"linguistic knowledge, textual knowledge and knowledge of the world". [8]Carroll (1959) suggested the possibility of using the cloze as a reading comprehension measure for foreign language learners. Cloze test didn't attract much attention until the sixties in language research, and it was popular in 1970s when overall competence was gaining attention. The idea of overall competence can be traced back to the Unitary Competence Hypothesis proposed by Oller (1979); before that time tests were devised to measure performance or recognition of separate sounds, specific grammatical features, or vocabulary items. What Oller said, in brief, was that language proficiency is indivisible, that tests only differ in their effectiveness at measuring this one factor, and that the elaborate apparatus of dimensions and tests used by the psychometrics could be replaced by one test which would directly tap the single indivisible faculty of overall proficiency, one of the most well-known being cloze tests, in which every nth word has been deleted. Among the deleted words, lexical ones take up 65 percent to 75 percent and functional ones, 25 percent to 35 percent. In 1970s, cloze tests were claimed to be not only tests of general language proficiency, but also of reading. [1] In fact, the cloze procedure was first used with native speakers of English in order to assess text readability, but it was soon used to test such subjects'abilities to understand texts as well, and was only later used to assess general language proficiency, especially of a second or foreign language. Cloze tests are very useful in many situations because they are so easy to prepare and score.Alderson (1971) has used cloze as a criterion reference test in an attempt to determine the readability of materials for an English as a second language class, and Jongsman (1971) has claimed that cloze is a valid test of reading comprehension for non-native speakers. It is a technique for measuring integrative ability. Klein-Braley (1981:229) comments that"the results of research with cloze tests have been extremely encouraging. They have shown high validity, high reliability, objectivity, discrimination and so on". [21]In 1970s and 1980s abroad, there aroused great interest and related studies about cloze test. For example, Bormuth (1967:295) maintained that cloze tests."Measure skills closely related or identical to those measured by conventional multiple-choice reading comprehension test."[5] Alderson (1979) dealt with the study on word deletion frequency. He found that, by changing the frequency of the deleted words, the resulted cloze test could have different prediction ability and he further pointed out that the original passages with more difficulties could supply better performance for the core proficiency.[3] Backman (1985) has compared two different deletion methods: every nth deletion and rational deletion. He found that these two deletion methods resulted in different difficult levels for the same passage.[4] In China, only a few researchers have done related studies, for instance, Li Shoujing (1990) focused on how to apply cloze test to English teaching;[31] Yu Aiju (1990,1993) did experiments to study the effects of multiple choices and guessing problems appeared in multiple-choice cloze test;[37] Dai Manchun (1996) analyzed the designing principles and distracter patterns during the construction of multiple-choice test;[25] Chen Xiaokou (2001) discussed the open cloze and multiple-choice cloze from the perspective of inferences.[22]Most of them just study one form of multiple-choice cloze, while there are few researches on other forms of multiple-choice cloze such as banked multiple-choice cloze, or the validity between these different kinds of multiple-choice cloze tests. The cloze test emphasizes the ability of understanding the contexts and needs the integrative abilities to fulfill the task. Cloze test has been widely feted as an effective testing approach, whose popularity can be witnessed in its appearance in other types of language tests, for instance, in listening, and even in studies of other languages. It is also used in various exams in China such as PETS, CET, EPT, and MET etc. However, most students fear the cloze when they are taking exams. And also they can not have a high score in cloze test. As an English teacher, I have the responsibility to do the research on the cloze test to construct a more valid cloze test for testing the real performance of students. Especially in China with the reformation of CET-4; there is another one cloze test. Banked MC cloze and separate item MC cloze is both popular and widely used in many exams. So it is the question open to the further investigation, hence arise the necessity for the thesis.This thesis is intended to make study on the separate multiple-choice cloze and banked multiple-choice cloze in CET-4 from perspective of the validity. From the study, we can pay more attention to cloze test in order to bring about a great advance in cloze test and to choose a more effective cloze test for the future teaching and learning.The main structure of the thesis goes as follows: Chapter 1 is an introduction to the background, purpose and organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 provides literature reviews on the theory foundation and brief introduction to cloze and validity. Chapter 3 puts forwards the administration of the study. Chapter 4 shows statistical data of validity and questionnaire analysis. Finally, Chapter 5 provides conclusion and further recommendations based on the cloze test findings and questionnaire investigations.
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