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Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study
All tests, especially large-scale high-stakes tests are believed to induce consequencesfor its stakeholders. It is clear that "testing is never a neutral process and always hasconsequences" (Stobart 2003: 140). Testing is a differentiating ritual for students; "forevery one who advances there will be some who stay behind，，(Wall 2000:500). Languagetesting, the same as testing in other objects, can exert influence on the stakeholdersinvolved, such as students, teachers，parents and administrators. The influence of a test onteaching and learning activities is defined as "washback" in the field of Applied Linguistics.And the washback effects can be either positive or negative.In the past few decades the washback effect of tests on language teaching and learninghas attracted considerable attention. A number of abroad scholars have done much researchinto washback effects and have proposed some significant theoretical hypotheses andmodels，for example, Alderson and Wall's Washback Hypotheses (Alderson & Wall, 1993)，a Basic Model of Washback (Bailey，1996)，Prodromou's Overt-covert Washback(Prodromou, 1995)，etc. The empirical studies mainly focus on investing the mechanism ofwashback，the nature of washback (positive or negative) and strategies for creatingbeneficial effect and avoiding harmful effect，whose study objects are generally theinternational language proficiency tests such as TOEFL (Alderson & Hamps-Lyons, 1996),IELTS(Alderson，1999) and some important local language tests( Cheng，1997). All testshave helped to deepen our understanding of washback phenomenon, and flirthermore, topromote reforms in testing and education to some degree.
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1.2 The Role ofNMET
For Chinese students examinations play a crucial role in their daily life as they haveexperienced numerous tests as soon as they start school, and their academic performance isalso largely evaluated by the scores achieved in tests. The most important one is theuniversity entrance examination，whose result has a great influence on students' future and destiny. For those who perform well and achieve high scores can get the chance of beingenrolled in key universities, while the rest can only go to the average ones and some mayeven lose the opportunity of being admitted by universities. A student needs to take five orsix subjects according to the requirements of the type of the university for which he or sheapplies. English, together with Chinese and mathematics, is a compulsory subject for allcandidates regardless of their choice of university.The National Matriculation English Test is a standardized norm-Referencedproficiency test introduced in 1985 as a replacement for the old national universityentrance English test (Li，1990). The number of candidates varies each year. It was aboutthree million in the early 1980s and increased to 10.8 million in 2008. With its heavy weight in Chinese education and large test-takingnumbers, the NMET is undoubtedly regarded as high-stakes English test in China, whichinfluences how society evaluates the schools，and how schools，parents and studentsevaluate the teachers. Apart from its selection purpose, the NMET is used to bring aboutdesirable washback to English teaching and learning at the secondary level (Qi，2004b).
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Chapter Two Literature Review

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