I WOULD like to share with you my own reflections on the present examination system. However, I have to make it clear at the very beginning that this is not an academic research paper and I have not done deep-going research to find out all the relevant statistics about the examination system. This is just my own observation from years of teaching experience. Therefore，it is only the personal point of view of a retired professor. Today I would like to share it with you to welcome discussions and comments. The second point I would like to make clear is that in my speech, I will refer to exams in general, but as we are language teachers, I will refer to language tests in particular. And my observation is mostly in English language teaching in universities. My understanding of English language teaching in high schools is limited. Therefore, misjudgments are unavoidable. The third thing is that I am not making a clear differentiation between exams and tests. In this paper, the two words are used more or less interchangeably.
Examinations have been playing a very important role in Chinese history, in its education and politics. Chinese feudal dynasties from the Sui to the Qing used the imperial examination system to select candidates to civil and military posts. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the “eight-legged essay” was adopted, which was known for its rigidity of form and poverty of ideas. At present, the most influential is the college entrance examination, which may decide a youngster’s future. But that is not all. To study abroad, one has to take the TOFEL or the IELTS test; to pursue further studies, one has to take exams; to get a kind of qualification certificate, one has to take exams; and to be promoted to professorship, one has to take an exam in a foreign language. Examination seems to have permeated the Chinese life style. From seven-year-old children to adults, people are taking exams, exams and exams.
No doubt, exams have been playing their role of selecting people. The college entrance examination system was reintroduced 30 years ago and up to now has sent 36 million young people to regular tertiary education. Even the often criticized TOFEL exam has given great impetus to the improvement of the English proficiency level of science students in China. On the other hand, the negative side of the present exam system has also been strongly felt. Despite the research of testing theories to make exams more creditable, viable with better balanced item difficulty and item discrimination, large-scale exams favor objective tests, which, in the case of language tests, split the organic texts into testable points that may or may nor reflect the frequency and usefulness of those selected items in the actual use of the language. Reading comprehension questions are miles away from a full understanding of the text. In some cases, you don’t even have to read the text just to get a pass of the test given. I even saw one extreme case that used multiple choice questions to test translation. After a Chinese sentence, four English sentences are given as choices; or four Chinese sentences are given after one English sentence. The students are asked to pick one as the best answer. This may be useful at the beginning stage of training, but I don’t think it can actually teach students how to do translation. Selection of “testable” points forces test paper designers to split the hair and use a larger and larger number of points that may not be very useful in real life. When all subjects follow this pattern, no wonder high school students cannot go to bed until after 11 o’clock in the evening, trying to finish all sorts of exercises for the preparation of the exams. How do we look at this phenomenon and is there anything we can do in face of this situation? The following are my personal reflections.
I would call the present exam system a necessary evil. Why?
First I think it is a necessity, because up to now no other means of selection has been found to replace it. It seems to be fairer than other means in selecting candidates for whatever purposes. During the “cultural revolution” years, some other ways were used but only led to rampant favoritism and backdoor-ism. Under the large-scale exam system, everyone is equal in front of marks. Well performing students from lower family backgrounds still have the opportunity to get further education and improve their jobs. If the selection power rests with a few individuals and the power is unchecked, anything may happen. Recently, universities are given a bit more freedom in choosing their students, but if the power of the supervisors and selectors are not well regulated, then guanxi will be a better qualification than the student’s real ability.
It is a necessity also because it has some positive effects as it reflects the student’s ability to some extent. Take English tests as an example, they normally cover listening, structure, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and even translation and writing. If the individual results may show some deviation from the student’s real ability, the overall picture is more or less accurate. For instance, in college entrance examinations, students obtaining over 600 marks and those obtaining less than 300 are clearly differentiated. Test designers are also devoting great efforts to improving the tests, aiming at a higher credibility and viability level, striking a better balance between objective questions and subjective questions.
It is a necessity also because under the present situation, it has attained a high market value and nobody can escape from it. From primary schools to universities, from job-related certification tests to foreign language tests for professional title promotion, it involves almost everybody, at least almost everybody in the urban areas. Before the system sees a fundamental change, the only thing we can do is find ways to cope with it in a better way, enhancing its positive side and minimizing its negative effects.
Apart from being an unavoidable necessity at the present, the exam system is a potential evil. The phenomenon of high marks but low ability is widely known and talked about. Because of the long history of the exam system, Chinese students are good exam takers. Some students can take the TOFEL test with very good marks but can hardly write a 200-word article to express themselves. So some foreign institutions often doubt whether there was any cheating in the tests because of this kind of discrepancy between the marks and the ability.
Next, the over-emphasis on the exams upsets the normal learning process. We normally talk about five abilities in language learning — listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. Beginners may find more difficulties in speaking but college students studying abroad have the biggest problem in fulfilling the reading assignments. However, in most of English classroom teaching, the text is dissected into so-called language points and then followed by a number of exercises modeled on exam question types. Speaking and writing centered on the subject matter related to the text is reduced to the minimum. Therefore, in a way, the carefully selected texts are used more or less as pretexts for so-called language points and those exam-type exercises. In some textbooks, exercises that are not related to the text but are oriented towards exam preparation account for more than 60 percent. Students do not get enough time to speak and write to express themselves. Moreover, Chinese teachers refrain from marking writing exercises. Day in and day out, students’ ability in taking exams get improved but their speaking and writing ability do not see much improvement. What makes it worse is that some teachers and even schools try to teach the students how to get higher marks.
Next, the exam questions do not reflect the most useful part of the related knowledge in practice. Language tests often deviate from the actual use of the language. For instance, the question to test whether the students know that after “many a”, the noun and the following verb should be in the singular form has no real value in the use of contemporary English. Another example, the test question “Is it cold enough for ____ a frost tonight?” asks the students to choose “there to be” from the choices to complete the sentence. But the sentence itself is so unnatural that you may not use it all your lifetime. Not infrequently, some non-existent expressions are included in the choices for multiple choice questions as distracters but this only gets the students confused. Many useful elements are not tested because test paper designers may think that they are not sophisticated enough. But actually, if students can use simple English to express themselves, it is much better than being able to do those seemingly sophisticated questions.
Finally the test question sea tactics is often used. Exams are everywhere and the exam question pool becomes larger and larger. To analyze them and get the most typical questions that cover the widest territory of the useful elements is an extremely difficult job. So the hope is that the more sample tests that the students do, the better the chance that they will meet with similar questions in the real exams. Therefore students are thrown into all sorts of question seas which dampen their enthusiasm if not drown them. Some high school students told me that for each section of the sample test, they may have more than ten mistakes and so they think that English is so difficult and they have no way out. Sitting up late every night does not seem to get them anywhere. And they lose the most important element of success — interest.
Now we see a highly mixed picture of the exam system. Under such circumstances, how should we respond to it then? My simple reaction is that on the one hand, we need to help the students to cope with it better, and on the other, we have to make improvements.
Response to it as a necessity (Helping the students cope with it better)
IF students cannot avoid taking exams, then the first thing we have to do is to help them better cope with them. And here I think the most important thing is to build up their confidence and interest. Not long ago, a friend’s son came to me saying that he found English very difficult and he made a lot of mistakes in all the sample tests, especially with the relative clause. The first thing I said to him was that English is not difficult; it is only different. All small kids in the world can learn a language without difficulty, and therefore a foreign language should not be scaring. If you can identify your friends and enemies in learning English, you would find it interesting. Then, I picked some questions that he did not get the answers correct, and explained to him the reasons why. Then, I asked him to do another set of similar questions. When he got all the answers correct, he was very much encouraged, and told me that English was not as difficult as he thought it to be. And it seemed that he had even developed some interest in this subject.
Chinese teachers and parents always make strict demands on their students and children. They tend to point out their mistakes more often than encourage them by pointing out their progress. Foreign parents always praise their children, encouraging them to demonstrate their progress in front of guests. Children who get encouragement would develop a love for that subject and put in more efforts. That is the magic of encouragement. For instance my son chose to study chemistry in Tsinghua University. One most important reason was he got a lot of encouragement from the teacher when he was in high school. Too much criticism will dampen the students’ enthusiasm and interest. I believe if students get more encouragement from their parents and teachers, they will be able to do much better in that particular subject.
To help students, another important thing is to do away with the test question sea tactics. Under the pretext of “practice making perfect”, it is very easy for a teacher to get hold of another set of test papers for the students to do, and this is always done under the pretext of doing good to the students. Nevertheless, many students are drowned in this sea and lose their interest. Unfortunately, commercialism has added fuel to this fire. You see all kinds of sample test papers in bookstores. Actually, if the teachers can help students improve their ability by doing fewer questions, I believe that is the best way. Take relative clause in English tests for example, if the teacher, after analyzing a number of test papers, can choose a small number of questions to cover the most frequently tested points and give succinct explanations, and then ask the students to do a limited number of similar questions to consolidate their understanding, that will be much better than ask the students to do endless questions and repeat many of their errors without understanding why. Here I can share my personal experience with you. In high school, one subject I liked most was geometry. The simple reason was the teacher each time used 30 minutes of the class time for explanation and assigned a few exercises for us to do in the remaining time of the class. After-class exercises were kept at the minimum. But the whole class got fairly good marks for the subject because half an hour of concentration and real understanding is much better than many hours spent worrying or sitting there with an empty head.
In order to help the students develop their ability by doing fewer questions and test papers, teachers have to help the students draw inferences about other cases from one instance. If the students can draw inferences rather than trying to memorize thousands of instances, then they will have a sober mind and stronger confidence when they take the exams. Take the following question as an example:
— Mom, what did your doctor say?
— He advised me to live ______ the air is fresher.
And the four choices are: A. in where, B. in which, C. the place where, and D. where.
Instead of asking the students to memorize the answer, make them understand that what comes after the verb “live” is an adverbial. “The air is fresher” is a complete clause. So “_____ the air is fresher” is an adverbial clause. The test point is to choose the link word. Choice A is wrong because the preposition “in” requires a noun after it. B is wrong because the relative pronoun “which” requires an antecedent that is not clearly mentioned in the sentence. C is wrong because something is missing between “live” and “the place”. D is the correct answer because “where the air is fresher” is a complete adverbial clause serving the purpose. Another way to express the same idea is: “He advised me to live in a place where the air is fresher.” But here the word “where” becomes a relative adverb introducing a relative clause. Then, they can apply similar analysis to other similar questions and do not have to do a hundred questions like this to prepare for the exam.
Teachers have to help students develop this ability. Throwing students into the exam question sea will only kill the students’ interest and confidence.
Response to it as a potential evil (Trying to make some improvements)
If the exam system is a potential evil, then another side of our response to it is to try to soften its negative impact by making some improvements.
The first point I would like to mention is to downgrade the importance of exams. The Ministry of Education is working hard in this respect with College English Tests Bands 4 and 6. With the most important exams of all — the college entrance exams, things are being talked about but not much has been done in providing multi-channels for the youngsters’ future. Therefore, no matter how much is talked about education for all-round development, exam-oriented education is still the norm. Actually, exams can help select talents, but the people they select may not be the best ones. The Number One Scholars chosen by the palace exams were not the ones that made the greatest contributions to Chinese history. Therefore, if the importance of exams has not been downgraded institutionally, we have to downgrade it in our mind.
The second point is to avoid unreasonable questions. Major exams pool the efforts of experts and normally they are of high quality. But other test papers may still contain some unreasonable points. The above-mentioned “many a” is an example. For language tests, we have to adjust them towards actual use of the language, making them more compatible with the real ability in listening, reading, speaking and writing.
Then, I think we should emphasize real proficiency in classroom teaching, spending more time in real comprehension and appreciation of the text, getting a better understanding of the relationship between the language form and the meaning conveyed. Training students to be a test machine is far away from the real meaning of learning a language. The main purpose of learning a foreign language is to use it in communication, to understand the underlying culture, to develop friendship, to enhance mutual understanding, to introduce advanced things accumulated by humankind and to share Chinese things with people of the rest of the world. Now too much time is spent on preparing for exams. For me, the ideal picture is that students do not have to make special preparations for exams and still get good marks, because knowledge learned this way will stay long in the brain, while things memorized for the exam will soon be forgotten and are not very useful.
According to Professor Ronald Carter of Nottingham University in Britain, learning a foreign language consists of three things, namely learning to use the language, learning through the language and learning about the language. I think it is important to strike a balance between the three. For a foreign language teacher, learning about the language is important, because you have to explain the so-called language points to your students. However, for ordinary foreign language learners, learning to use the language and learning through the language are more important. I think a better balance is necessary, giving more time and emphasis to learning through the language and learning to use the language.
The prerequisites to finding a solution
The above suggestions are what we can do before we can find a real solution to the exam system dilemma. The final solution seems to be far away. It needs the following prerequisites. First we need an honest society and do away with favoritism. The society also has to change the single-log bridge system. In order to link language tests with actual use of the language, we need more open-book exams to change the phenomenon of memorizing without comprehending. If students can actually use the foreign language they learn in communication, in research, and in expressing their ideas, that will be much more useful than knowing how to do those not very useful exam questions.
