A Comparative And Statistical Analysis Of Listening Tests In Pets5and CSC-ET

Testing serves as an essential measure to evaluate the efficiency of language teaching.The nature of a test paper could be crucial to both the students and the teachers for theirimprovement in learning and teaching respectively. Listening, as one of the fourimportant skills in language learning (listening, speaking, reading and writing), is usuallyplaced at the first part in any test paper. Listening, once regarded as a receptive andpassive learning process, is now recognized as a constructive and active process,especially important at schools where instruction is done predominantly through lecturing.Each year, China Scholarship Council (CSC) provides scholarship to qualifiedcandidates for further studies or academic researches abroad. Most candidates areteachers from universities or doctors from hospitals. To obtain the qualification, theyhave to take either PETS-5(Public English Test System–level5) or CSC-ET (ChinaScholarship Council English Test). PETS-5, claimed to be communicative in nature andset at the level equivalent to the completion of two years of English study as a major, is apublic test for anyone who wants to have his/her English level assessed. CSC-ET,however, is a communicative test exclusively designed for the purpose of assessingwhether anyone taking the test is competent enough for further academic study abroad. Itcan only be taken after one semester of language training at one of the state designatedcenters.This paper aims to compare and analyze the listening comprehension section of thesetwo tests which seem to serve for the same purpose. In order to explore this, an empiricalstudy is conducted by having90candidates take five sets of the tests, including four setsof CSC-ET tests and one set of PETS5test. The tests would be analyzed from severalperspectives and after a relatively thorough analysis, conclusions are drawn andsuggestions are put forward for further improvement.