| Language testing has gone through three stages in its development. Before the 1970s, the analytic approach known as "psychometric-structurar was in the leading position. The second stage was the popular global integrative approach. Spolsky (Spolsky, 1999) and some researchers named it the "psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic" approach. The last is the communicative approach which began in the middle 1980s. With the development of communicative language teaching, communicative language testing has been established as centrally important. According to the communicative approach, this is a method of language learning for the learner to use the language for effective communication, feeling exchanging and understanding, as well as to achieve tasks. The three approaches may seem to be divided diachronically, but they overlap each other.The emergence of the communicative era in 1970s brought a wave of criticism of the old traditional non-communicative tests. It was claimed that the type of language produced on those tests was artificial and calls were made to develop tests which would require test takers to produce REAL language, the kind of language that is used among REAL people". Consequently, in the past decade there has been a major shift in language, testing towards the development and use of communicative tests (e.g., Clark 1975, Morrow 1977; Wilds 1975). It was expected that those tests would assess a broader and more real construct of what knowing a language really means. Good tests should have sound validity and reliability, and bring advantages to teaching, known as positive backwash. The validity of a test is the extent to which it measures what it is supposed to measure and nothing else. Reliability is a necessary characteristic of any good test: for it to be valid at all, a test must first be reliable as a measuring instrumentThe CET(4/6) has been established for more than 20 years, as a national public examination, and its weak points have been revised based on the theory of communicative approach, and considering the validity and reliability of the test. In order to figure out the problems in the CET test, mainly, this paper analyzes these problems from the following three vantage points: the criterion (outline), the test type, and the backwash effect of the test. Besides, questionnaires are adopted to support conclusions in the analysis. There are three kinds of questionnaires distributed to a comparably wide range of students in different majors and teachers involved in different language-teachingcourses. As well, the paper offers some methods for their improvement. Though, the solution may be hard to carry out in application, efforts should he made.As an achievement test and a criterion-referenced test, the CET(4/6) does not reflect the actual language ability of (he students in the test completely and comprehensively. In the criterion, the description is inadequate.Today the CET(4/6) has adopted the discrete type, the integrated type and also the communicative type in testing methods in order to check the language competence. Each type has its advantages and disadvantages and that is why the CET(4/6) has combined them together to ensure a reasonable balance of validity and reliability.In the problem-analyzing part, firstly the outline is put on the table. The current situation of testees' in the CET(4/6) js far advanced compared with those in early 90s, while the outline has had less revision. The unsuitable outlines for testing undoubtedly weaken the effect of the test. Secondly, the stereotyped items used in the GET also negatively affect the test. The uniformity of question-answer multiple-choice questions, no matter which section they are in - the listening comprehension section, the reading comprehension section or else, has made the test less authentic. Note that context is of the utmost importance in all tests. Dccontextualised multiple-choice items can do considerable harm by conveying the impression that language can be learnt and used free of any context. Both linguistic con... |
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