| During the process of English learning, the ability of learners'reading comprehension is the base and basic approach to develop language skills. Reading comprehension can be found in almost domestic English examinations, and there is no exception in CET-4. Reading comprehension, which covers the highest proportion in CET-4, is the most effective method to test students'linguistic competence. Having collected the passages–totally 124, from Jan.1995 to Dec.2008 in CET-4. , this thesis analyzes the passages from textual structures, such as length, text readability, theme, genre, sources and grammatical features to dig out the characteristics of the passages. The thesis also tries to classify the question types and the characters of the passages. Hence, the corresponding strategies and effective reading methods are proposed in dealing with the questions appeared in Reading in Depth of the old tests and Skimming and Scanning, Banked Cloze of the new ones respectively in order to provide full and accurate first-hand information for the college English teachers and the examinees.This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter 1 firstly points out the significance and purpose of this research, and then explains the curriculum requirements towards the students'reading comprehension, the types, purpose and objects of reading comprehension tests. Consequently it introduces the two methods to judge the text readability.Chapter 2 is the theoretical basis of the whole dissertation. The author introduces the definitions of reading given by famous scholars and experts at home and abroad in reading field and provides her own understanding about reading. Next the author demonstrates the three popular reading models and four reading theories at present. The three reading models are bottom-up model, top-down model and interactive model. The four reading theories are schema theory, cognitive theory, sociological theory and interactive reading theory. Finally, the author emphasizes that the language teachers should employ different teaching theories and teaching models according to different teaching contents and various students'needs in reading teaching.Chapter 3 is Literature Review. The author finds out that the number of papers in journals concerning reading increases quickly during the past ten years, which shows the concern of the English teachers to reading teaching. However, most papers just focus on one or several examinations in CET-4, no one has collected all the texts in CET-4 and analyzed the features of the reading passages. Diachronic research and textual structures analysis are also vacant. Hence, the thesis explores the passages from the above aspects.Chapter 4 is the body of the thesis. The author demonstrates the findings and gives the detailed analysis. In the old type of CET-4 reading part, in another word, before June, 2006, the average length of each passage is 306 words and the average total words in the all four passages are 1225. Since June, 2006 the new type of CET-4 applied, the average total words in the all four passages are 1931, 706 words added. The passages in CET-4 can be fully understood by American middle school students of Grade 10 or 11. The genre of the passages is mainly exposition and argumentation. The topics of the passages are mostly concerned with America, which accounts for 47%. The thesis also analyzes the grammatical features of the passages. Furthermore, the author reveals the most frequent testing points, the differences between the old type and the new type of CET-4 in the reading comprehension parts, whereas the strategies are offered to do better in taking and preparing the CET-4 examinations.In the conclusion part, the author sums up the findings and points out the limitations of this thesis.
|
PDF Full Text Request