A Situation And Trend Report On The Writing Subtest In NMET

National College Entrance Examination is one of the most authoritative tests in China, which plays a major role in screening talents. Provincial proposition reform has been initiated by the Ministry of Education for many years. Following Shanghai (in1987) and Beijing (in2002) that took the lead in autonomous proposition,14other provinces have conducted independent proposition up to the year2006. Candidates involved in this reform have totaled to65%, and till this point, the traditional unitary NMET has been replaced by the diversified provincial proposition forms, granting certain cities and provinces the rights to make NMET papers autonomously, and reducing partiality brought about by regional differences. While provincial proposition is gaining popularity for being practical and diversified, it also raises a lot of controversies. Studies on NMET under provincial proposition condition need to be enriched.NMET mainly exams the candidates’basic skills in English listening, speaking, reading and writing, among which writing skill is of essential importance and difficulty. Besides, with the growing emphasis on communicative testing, the writing subtest is gaining more attention. Specialized research is particularly important, but is deficient.To fill this gap, this paper analyses the writing test section of NMET. The innovation of the present thesis lies in that, on the one hand, it is a specialized analysis on the writing subtest, and on the other hand, it is a systematic analysis based on statistics collected from all NMET papers across the nation in the past ten years. The present thesis has basic knowledge on language testing, writing assessment, the writing subtest in NMET and relative theories on writing as its theoretical foundation.The present thesis has two major objectives to achieve, firstly a description of the current situation of the English writing subtest in NMET and secondly a prediction of the trend in the writing subtest.The former objective is achieved through the stability and innovation of the writing subtest. Firstly, to demonstrate the stability of the writing test in NMET, the author analyses from the aspect of mark allocation, length of the writing, an emphasis on practical writing, the adoption of close-to-life topics as well as the proposition structures. Furthermore, to show the innovation of the writing test, the author analyses from the aspect of new topics, a higher requirement and a growing extent of writing freedom. Thirdly, based on what has been discovered in the current situation, the future proposition tendency is predicted, namely, an increase in both mark proportion and length in the whole paper, multiple writing samples as well as a growing extent of freedom is possibly seen in the future writing test. Lastly, implications on both testing and English writing teaching are hopefully gained through the backwash effect.