The Analysis Of Test Questions Of National Chemistry Preliminary Contest Of Senior High School Students And Its Inspiration

National chemistry contest of senior high school students began in 1984 and the participants were the youth from all over the country. In order to be in line with International Chemistry Olympic Contest, it was made more meticulous and more perfect by a selective pattern of different ranks, for example, the first step is a region contest, then, the second preliminary contest, and the final contest will be held in the whole nation.The basic idea of chemistry contest for senior high school students is to promote the quality - oriented education in the middle schools and to investigate the students' ability. The purpose is to inspire and cultivate the students' interests in learning chemistry, to promote the reform of chemistry teaching, and to select the contestants for International Chemistry Olympic Contest.Through the analysis of the test questions from 1992 to 2003, it is concluded that the test questions are based on the basic knowledge of the middle school chemistry and its important points which are from easy to difficult. They put stress on the functions among inter- and intra- disciplinary, their permeation and synthesis, on putting theories into practice and developing chemistry and other sciences and technologies. The test questions also emphasize the examination of thinking ability, of the information processing ability, of self - study ability and of creating ability and so on. The test questions are intended to arrange knowledge in a more substantial and diverse way, with the level of knowledge becoming low, the questions more diverse and elastic, and with more attention to the design and the evaluation of creating thinking.It is also concluded that the contest has some implications on the reform of chemistry teaching in the middle schools, that is, the course contents must be diverse; the teaching should not only include the knowledge, but also the ability, methods and attitudes; the teaching materials should strengthen actual practice, the consistency with the discipline development, and the basic chemistry knowledge and the general concept which contribute to the students' solving the actual problems. In addition, the arrangement of the teaching materials should be advantageous to the students' study of knowledge and formation of the knowledge network. In order to train the students' active study attitude, brave science probing spirit, good science ability, and at the sametime to train them the science methods, the teaching process must be geared to the learners, with students as the center and the teachers the leading factor.Finally, there is a correlation between chemistry contest and quality oriented education. They promote each other. But they are different in their aims, subjects, contents, evaluation systems. Dealing with the relatbnship between them well can assure a good effect on quality education of the contest and develop quality oriented education more and deeper in chemistry teaching.