A Study Of Reading Subtest In National Matriculation English Test

Reading comprehension test is an essential component of the National Matriculation English Test, taking quite large proportion of the overall score.Most studies on NMET reading comprehension section focus on analyzing the topic of articles, test format for the purpose of offering English teachers and students test advices. This paper chooses663articles of2007-2013NMET reading comprehension section as research object, using Halliday’s functional discourse analysis theory as research tool, studies and then evaluates the test design quality of NMET reading comprehension. The result of the study reveals that:First, the test design of NMET reading comprehension is in line with the requirements of the high school English teaching and examination syllabi. Selected reading materials are diversified in genres, styles, themes, offering a balanced coverage of general knowledge about culture, politics, history, etc. The quality of papers reflects a growing tendency of improvement year by year.Second, it is found two problems in English reading comprehension test design.(1) certain questions about reading selections digress from the main subject of selected articles;(2) certain options of multiple choice questions do not match the context of situation of selected articles.Third, there exist two technical problems in the process of test design:(1) the options of certain multiple choice questions differ in length;(2) the format of certain selected articles does not copy the original version.For the problems found in study, the author advises test designers first to conduct an overall discourse analysis on the reading selection, make clear the structure and central idea of an article before designing reading comprehension test.