Language Entrance Examination Reform 20 Years

As a developed zone in China, Shanghai enjoys a higher level of cultural life,higher international trade record, and more flourishing media. At the same time,people nowadays have to deal with a large quantity of information that is renewingquickly. Therefore, the students in Shanghai have to lay a very solid foundation ofreading ability and communicative skills in Chinese. Correspondingly, renovationsand changes in Chinese-test paper of the National Entrance Examination (NEE) areoften necessary, so as to meet the demand of the society's selection of talented people.In 1985, Shanghai was chosen as the place where the experiment of reforming the oldNEE system was made, which offered Shanghai a historical opportunity and a startingpoint of Shanghai's NEE Chinese testing paper reform. And the fast economicdevelopment of Shanghai in the past 20 years has been providing big drive for thereform.Starting from the question of why we should have reforms in Shanghai's NEEChinese testing system, this thesis, diachronically, analyzes the changes in the guidingprinciple of devising NEE Chinese testing paper, its components and the examinationprocedures, and synchronically compare NEE Chinese testing papers in Shanghaiwith those in other provinces and Municipalities, so as to find out the characteristicsand the trends of development Shanghai's NEE Chinese testing paper, and to providesensible suggestions for the second-round teaching manual reforms undergoing inShanghai.The thesis is divided into four parts:The first part provides a background review of reforms of Shanghai's NEEChinese testing paper in the past 20 years. Three stages are distinguished with the aidof two rounds of middle school curricular reform. The characteristics of each stagehave been elaborated, in order to give us an overview of the trace of Shanghai NEEChinese testing reforms.The second part deals with testing contents in Shanghai NEE Chinese testingpaper. The author discusses specifically the question types and their development ofthe three big traditional components of NEE Chinese testing paper respectively,namely, Basic Knowledge, Reading Comprehension and Composition Writing.The third part is about the methods of testing. A scientific testing method is theassurance of validity and credibility of a test paper. In the process of standardization,Shanghai denies the practice of over-emphasis on multiple choice in NEE Chinesetesting paper, according to the particular characteristics of Chinese language.The last part of the thesis concludes the new trend of Shanghai NEE Chinesetesting paper reform under the background of globalization, i.e. a road ofmodernization and nationalization. However, the success of such reform as well as thesecond-round teaching manual reform can be only achieved under the guarantee ofNEE reform.