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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
Having been administered for decades, the College English Test (CET) and theTest for English Majors (TEM) are two important nationwide test batteries in China.CET is designed for non-English majors while TEM is designed for students majoringin English. Though targeted at different groups of college students, both tests haveaffected the test takers to the extent that their graduation and employment are stronglyinfluenced by the test results.CET is divided into two bands: CET-4 and CET-6, the former for non-Englishmajors who have completed the College English Courses Band-1 to Band-4, usuallythe second-year college students, and the latter for students who have passed CET-4,usually taken in their 3rd or 4th year in college. Thus, CET-6 is supposed to be moredifficult than CET-4. Similarly, TEM consists of two tests: TEM4 and TEM8. TEM4is given to English majors near the end of the first two year's foundation stage of afour-year degree course and TEM8 is given in the fourth year.After several times of reform, currently the test method of dictation is adopted indifferent forms as an important part of listening comprehension in these two tests. Thepresent study endeavors to compare and contrast the dictation part in these two tests toexplore the similarities and differences between compound dictation in CET-6 anddictation in TEM4.
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1.2 An Overview of CET-6 and TEM4
The College English Test (CET) is one of China's most popular and large-scalestandardized English tests with millions of test takers each year. Designed to evaluatethe overall English proficiency of college students, the test aims to measure whetherthe test takers' English proficiency has met the requirements of the College EnglishTeaching Syllabus and, thus, exerts great influence on college English education. In 2006, a reform of the CET took place. The new CET raised the proportion oflistening comprehension to 35% of the total score. A noticeable fact is that compounddictation, a test method in the listening section, has been changed from an alternativeto a must. As a relatively new test method, compound dictation first appeared in CET4in June, 1997. It requires the test takers to fill in the blanks of missing words, phrasesand sentences of a passage after listening to it for 3 times. With the idea of promotingthe development of students' communicative language ability in mind, this testmethod is designed to assess the testees' receptive skills and productive skills as well.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Listening Comprehension Testing
Though listening plays a vital role in communicative competence, theimportance of listening in language learning has only been recognized relativelyrecently (Oxford, 1993: 205). The role of listening comprehension in languagelearning was taken for granted, and researchers considered it an ability that woulddevelop without assistance (Osada 2004: 53). As Byrnes (1984: 318) points out,neither in the studies of language acquisition nor in foreign language teachingmethodology has been viewed as "a highly complex problem-solving activity"traditionally. Rather, "the listener was seen as a somewhat passive receiver of somecode". According to Vandergrift, “it is in the early 1970s that work by Asher,Postovsky, Winitz and, later, Krashen, brought at本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。