In College English Listening Examination In Multiple-choice Comparison Of The Effects Of The Kinds Of Questions And Short Answer Questions On The Candidates' Examination Results

As is known to all, the College English Test (CET) is a large-scale standardized test in China, with as many as 4.5 million college students taking it every year. In China, the wash-back effect of language tests especially large-scale tests like CET on language learning and teaching can be tremendous. Teachers and students tend to spend most of their time on listening, reading and writing because these are the three major components included in the CET. In China's present reform of college English learning and teaching, the main focus is on how to improve students'communicative competence in English.Test scores may be affected by test-takers'communicative language ability, test method facets, personal attributes and other random factors. Test method facet will have direct effect on test-taker's performance. Some of studies in listening comprehension observe that skilled listeners are those who are able to perform better on MC whereas others maintain that they perform better on SAQ. This thesis probes into test method in listening comprehension test and investigates the effects of test methods on test-takers'performance in listening comprehension test. The purpose of the present study is to identify and minimize the potential effects influencing test-takers'performance in listening comprehension test. This thesis reviews the nature of listening and some major theories of listening comprehension assessment. It also describes some factors that may affect test-takers'performance. For this study, two test papers are designed, employing the same audio materials with the use of two types of test methods--MC and SAQ. In Test Paper A, conversations adopt MC question format and passages adopt SAQ question format. In Test Paper B, conversations adopt SAQ question format and passages adopt MC question format. The subjects are 34 freshmen from Shanghai Jiaotong University. They are randomly divided into two groups, and each group took one of the two tests. A questionnaire survey is conducted to collect the subjects'opinions on the two test methods. The test...