Content Validity Study On Fast Reading Of Cet-4/6

Bachman (1990:279), the well-known American linguist, pointed that"tests are not developed and used in a value-free psychometric test-tube, they are virtually always intended to serve the needs of an educational system or of society at large."CET as a large-scale standardized national uniform examination has been conducted since 1987, by which the significant impact on candidates, colleges and employers is followed. From a test for teaching to the one for society, the transformation is the gradual process during last 20 years, for the importance attention of the society. CET proceeds with the ongoing politics, economy, culture and education etc. in our country, which is manifested by the indication of The Reform Scheme of National College English Test (For Trial Implementation) promulgated in 2005.This paper is presented by quantitative and qualitative methods in concentration of the newly added Fast Reading in new CET from the papers in June, 2007 to June, 2009 to probe the content validity of Fast Reading in new CET and its characteristics as well.On the theoretical basis of the synthetic approach to communicative testing (Bachman & Palmer, 1996), the whole research follows the fundamental principle of the approach---to adopt the advisable method to demonstrate the correspondence between language test performance and language uses. The explicit analysis and data collection are conducted on the descriptive system of communicative Fast Reading framework, which is newly constructed in combination with the practical manipulation in light of the task characteristics proposed by Bachman & Palmer (1996). The following aspects are involved in the new framework: characteristics of the setting, characteristics of test rubrics, characteristics of input and characteristics of the expected response. And then the content validity of Fast Reading in CET is evaluated by the comparison between the data and the teaching (2007), testing syllabi (2006). Finally, the characteristics of new CET-4/6 have been concluded with the listed recommendation and suggestions for the further research and test development.