How to reform the English proficiency test for CET-4 and CET-6？

　　Beijing, Dec. 14 (Leng Yuyang) According to the news from the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education, the CET-4 and CET-6 will be held today in the second half of 2019, and candidates can check their scores in February next year. In recent years, there has been a constant debate in public opinion about the reform of CET-4 and CET-6, and even the debate about whether to keep or abolish it. In the future, how to evaluate the English proficiency level is worthy of attention.

　　College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 starts today.

　　According to the news from the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education, the CET will be held on December 14th in the second half of 2019. Among them, 9: 00 am & mdash; Take CET-4 at 11:20, and at 15:00— At 17:25, the CET-6 will be conducted.

　　On the eve of the exam, many provincial education examination institutes issued a reminder that candidates must enter the examination room with the admission ticket, student ID card and valid ID card on the day of the exam (starting at 8:45 am and starting at 2:45 pm), and the "three certificates" are indispensable. Admission is forbidden after 15 minutes.

　　During the examination, candidates are only allowed to bring necessary examination stationery into the examination room, and are not allowed to bring books, materials, bags and other items. It is strictly forbidden to bring electronic equipment with the function of sending or receiving information. Once found, it will be dealt with in violation of regulations, and the results will be invalid.

　　According to the pre-test reminders issued by various places, before the exam, there are often some lawless elements and intermediaries in the society who use the Internet and other tools to publish harmful information such as "helping the exam", "providing real questions" and "answers" and peddling cheating tools, and claim to "package" to defraud candidates of money. Please don’t believe in false propaganda, so as not to be deceived.

　　Under the current examination system, the CET written test is held twice a year in June and December of each year. In June, all subjects in English and non-English are taken, and only English subjects are taken in December. CET oral test is held twice a year, in May and November each year. Since December 2016, candidates who apply for the written test in the same year are eligible to apply for the same level of oral test.

　　Candidates can check their scores through the official website of CET-4 and CET-6 in February next year.

　　Debate on the reform of CET-4 and CET-6

　　The National College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 is a large-scale standardized test sponsored by the Ministry of Education and presided over and implemented by the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education. Since its implementation in 1987, CET-4 and CET-6 have gone through more than 30 years, accompanying the youth of generations of students.

　　In order to constantly meet the needs of students learning English, CET-4 and CET-6 have been on the road of reform. The reporter found that in recent ten years, various reform schemes, such as taking multiple questions and volumes, canceling cloze, increasing Chinese-English translation scores, and changing fast reading comprehension into long reading comprehension, have been implemented in CET-4 and CET-6.

　　On October 23 this year, the plenary session of the National College English Test Committee for Band 4 and Band 6 in the second half of 2019 held in Shanghai said that the use of artificial intelligence technology has obvious effects on improving the quality of marking papers, and it is suggested to further strengthen research and gradually promote it. Moreover, the CET test system still needs to be further improved, and it is suggested that CET oral test should be included as a compulsory subject as soon as possible, which is beneficial to college English teaching.

　　In fact, in recent years, some experts and scholars have called for "canceling the CET-4 and CET-6 examination" and "turning to the socialization level examination".

　　In January this year, Cai Jigang, a professor at Fudan University and the president of China Academic English Teaching Research Association, published an article in the media entitled "CET-4 and CET-6 can be turned to socialization level test". According to the article, CET-4 and CET-6 have even seriously affected the higher requirements of college English, and standardized tests have also affected or even seriously affected the development of college students’ critical thinking ability.

　　In Cai Jigang’s view, higher education is a systematic process, and each major or course can’t be selfish. College English can only be a service course. Different disciplines and majors have different needs for English, and the English proficiency test should not be "one size fits all". CET-4 and CET-6 should be turned to socialized proficiency test as soon as possible.

　　At the same time, however, there are voices that the CET-4 and CET-6 can’t fully reflect the level of the subjects, but its existence value should not be denied.

　　According to a commentary published by China Youth Daily at the end of 2017, CET-4 and CET-6 cover listening, reading, translation and writing. At the same time, an oral test is set, which covers listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the test items are relatively flexible. Compared with IELTS or TOEFL, which cost thousands of registration fees, CET-4 and CET-6, which can be applied for only tens of yuan, is still the "gold standard" for evaluating the English level of most China students.

　　Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at China Academy of Educational Sciences, told Zhongxin.com that although CET-4 and CET-6 have played a lot of positive roles in history, the shortcomings of their unscientific inspection standards and insufficient pertinence have hindered students’ English learning. Relevant departments may wish to listen to the suggestions of academic circles and replace them or carry out more drastic reforms.

　　When will the future English test come?

　　The reporter noted that as early as 2014, the State Council issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Examination Enrollment System", proposing to strengthen the construction of foreign language proficiency assessment system, which is the first time at the national level to put forward clear requirements for the comprehensive reform of foreign language examinations.

　　In February 2018, the Ministry of Education and state language commission officially released the China English Proficiency Scale, which is the first English proficiency assessment standard for English learners in China. At that time, when answering a reporter’s question, the person in charge of the examination center of the Ministry of Education said that on the basis of the scale, the examination center of the Ministry of Education was developing the English proficiency test.

　　In December this year, Yu Han, deputy director of the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education, revealed at the 2019 TOEFL annual meeting that the overall design of the China English Proficiency Test has been completed at this stage. "The focus of the previous research is to develop exams corresponding to the corresponding levels of higher education. At present, the design and demonstration of the examination syllabus have been completed, and the test work has been carried out in some colleges and universities. "

　　In view of the speculation that China English Proficiency Test will replace CET-4 and CET-6, on December 11th, the relevant person in charge of the Examination Center of the Ministry of Education responded to the media reporter and said: How to integrate the new system with the existing examination items and do a good job in inheritance and development, we are studying and widely listening to opinions.

　　In addition, it is worth noting that another national-level general English test — — The National English Test has been suspended in Sichuan, Liaoning, Jiangxi and Henan provinces.

　　The comprehensive reform of foreign language examination is progressing continuously, but the final direction of CET-4 and CET-6 is still inconclusive.