A Study Of Characteristics And Content Validity Of Nmet Reading Tests In Shaan Xi Province (2006-2009)

In China, the college entrance examination bears great mission to select talents. As a high-stakes test, it produces great impact on society. In 2004, the department of education decides to let some provinces write the test by themselves. In 2006, Shaanxi province gets the right to write English test independently. Up to 2009, it has been four years and the quality of National Matriculation English Test in Shaanxi has attracted wide attention. However, there are few systematic and scientific evaluations and research product for the National Matriculation English Test in Shaanxi.As for foreign language learners, reading is the main source of information. Therefore, reading ability becomes one of the important factors that measure a person's language competence. Developing middle school students'English reading abilities is important content of English teaching in middle school. Meanwhile, reading comprehension test covers 40 points (nearly one third) of the total score in the NationalMatriculation English Test and influences test takers'total points greatly. Thus, designing good reading comprehension test is an important facet that grantees the success of National Matriculation English Test.Considering the importance of College entrance examination and reading, this paper explores NMET reading comprehension tests in Shaanxi from 2006 to 2009. Based on Bachman and Palmer's framework of test method facets and the research product of reading at home and abroad, the author rebuilds a framework of reading characteristics combining the requirements of reading test in the teaching and testing syllabuses and test specification. According to the revised framework, the present study analyzes and evaluates the characteristics and content validity of NMET reading comprehension tests in Shaanxi from five aspects: setting, test rubrics, input, expected response and the relationship between input and expected response.The results show that it has high content validity in NMET reading comprehension tests in Shaanxi and the testing contents meet the requirements in the two syllabuses and test specification. Specifically, NMET reading tests in these four years have the following characteristics:1) the testing format and structure are stable; 2) topics are extensive, interesting and real; 3) genres basically meet the requirement of testing syllabus, however, most of them belong to expositions and argumentations and there are no practical writings; 4) the total length of reading materials keeps within the limits set by the test specification and sentence length is stable in the reading passages from 2006 to 2009; 5) difficulty of reading is controlled well; 6) reading skills cover all the six reading skills stipulated in the testing syllabus.However, some weaknesses are found in the process of analysis such as only multiple-choice question is used in the test item; genres are too concentrated on exposition and argumentation. At last, this paper gives some suggestions for the further studies and English reading teaching in middle school. In the meantime, some limitations are pointed out in the present study.