Exploring Effectiveness Of Assessment Of Interpreting Competence

As China's contacts with the international world become more and more frequent, the increasing demand for professional interpreter has stimulated the development of interpreting market. Interpreting certification test plays an important role of evaluating the professional interpreting competence in the market. Under this background, various kinds of interpreting certification tests have been set in China. However, the effectiveness of the assessment of these tests is worthy of study for it determines the success of the interpreting certification tests in China.In the body of the paper, firstly, the author introduces the status quo of Chinese interpreting certification tests, and analyses the three key factors of professional interpreting competence: knowledge, skill and psychology.After that, the author introduces "validity" and its meaning in interpreting certification test. The purpose of these tests is to evaluate professional interpreting competence, and validity means the degree to which an assessment measures what it purports to measure. Therefore, the author intends to research the effectiveness of the assessment of the interpreting certification test by analysing its validity.Based on this, the paper takes a typical Chinese interpreting certification test-China Aptitude Test for Translators and Interpreters (Level 2) as an example, analyses its construct validity, content validity and criterion-related validity from the perspective of its question type, topic selection, testing points, testing format and so on. The analysis result shows that the overall validity of theis test is high, especially the construct and content validity, while its criterion-related validity is relatively low.Last but not least, the author concludes that the interpreting certification test, in general, can effectively assess professional interpreting competence, but it still has room for improvement. So the author, based on the strength and weakness of China Aptitude Test for Translators and Interpreters (Level 2), puts forward some suggestion: adding more question types to the test, diversifying its knowledge construction, and making the testing environment more authentic. By so doing, the test can evaluate the professional interpreting competence in a more comprehensive way, thus more effectively selecting interpreting talents for the professional interpreting cause in China.