The Analysis Of Validity Of The Latest Three-year NMET In Jiangsu Province

As the entrance examination of higher education, National Matriculation Test has always been the focus of the whole society. But it is in this important selection examination that many issues need us to make scientific explanations. The validity of National Matriculation English Test (NMET) is one of the typical issues. Validity has been considered as the core standard to measure the quality of a test. In recent years, various studies on the validity of language testing emerged at home and aboard, but there are few studies on the validity of NMET. So it is necessary to study the validity of NMET.The goal of this thesis is to find out the validity of the NMET of Jiangsu province from 2008 to 2010. The research method of this thesis is qualitative and quantitative analysis. The standards to analyze the validity of these papers are the basic theory of language testing—Theory of communicative language testing and the NMET syllabuses of Jiangsu province from 2008 and 2010. The analysis process can be divided into three parts. Firstly, comparing the abilities that various question types intended to test with the abilities these exam papers actually test. Through the comparison results, the researcher can analyze the face validities of these papers. Secondly, analyzing the content validities through the comparison between the NMET syllabuses of Jiangsu province and the exam papers of these three years. Finally, comparing the language competences proposed in the theory of communicative language testing with the language competences tested in these exam papers. So the researcher can judge the construct validities of these exam papers.The study results reveal that the face validity of subjective test is higher than the objective test of the Jiangsu NMET papers from 2008 to 2010. These papers are designed according to the NMET syllabus, so they have high content validity. In terms of construct validity, most of the papers test the grammatical, textual and pragmatic competences of the examinees, which consistent with the essence of communicative language testing theory. Therefore, the Jiangsu NMET papers from 2008 to 2010 have high construct validity. Finally, this thesis will also offer some valuable and constructive suggestions to the design of NMET paper and English teaching in middle school.