| National College Entrance Examination(NCEE), shouldering the responsibility of selecting candidates for higher education and bridging secondary and higher education, plays a complex role in the life of Chinese people. As the new Chinese curriculum reform has been carried out for 11 years, assignment of composition topic completed a gradual transformation. In line with the rule that dividing for long is sure to unite, the composition topics were assigned by 11 provinces on their own separately in 2004, whereas up to 26 provinces will accept the same national composition topic unanimously in 2016. Shanghai, being among the first, gained the right to assign its examination paper for NCEE in 1985, then Beijing got limited assignment right over the subjects of Chinese, mathematics and English in 2002. The limitations on self assignment right of every province were further removed in 2003, therefore provincial assignment burst out blossoms the next year. Till 2014 the state began to forfeit such right with planning,26 provinces will have adopted one nationally assigned paper in NCEE by the end of 2016 with the exception to Beijing, Tianjing, Shanghai, Zhejiang province and Jiangsu province.Accompanying by the constant renewal of entrance examination system, the national examination paper for Chinese will change accordingly. Composition, only occupying one part of the Chinese examination paper in NCEE, is required to test candidates’ability comprehensively, which has been long capturing the attention of the public. Notwithstanding the Examination Description and the Examination Outline of NCEE clearly set out what the examinees’ writing competence should be at each level, it turns out that NCEE compositions are prone to be rigidified as templates in the process of teaching and learning, which in the nature blur the requirements of composition and resist the refinement of student’s aesthetic appreciation and humanistic quality. The study chooses composition topics form 2004 to 2015 as the subject and places them in the context of new Chinese curriculum reform. Based on the 11 years’ composition topics, it aims to present the overall characteristics of NCEE compositions from the perspective of their forms and contents after several provinces and municipalities gained the self-assignment right.As for the layout of the dissertation, it consists of five parts on the whole. Part one introduces the origin and the significance of the study, then elaborates on the inspirations drawn from previous researches. The second part overviews the assignment of NCEE composition topic in the context of new Chinese curriculum reform. Taking the general requirements for talents training in 21st century into account, it expounds the background of new Chinese curriculum for senor high school, competence development, as well as the capacity goal of NCEE composition. Through a systematic review of former composition topics, the emphasis of the study finally lays on the national and provincial composition topics from 2004 to 2015. The following part goes further to analyze the forms of these topics and summarize the request for composition style. According to the requirement of the assignment of composition forms in NCEE, this section classifies them into proposition, topic and material writing grounded on all topics from 2004 to 2015. From the rising and falling change of each type of composition, it reveals the tendency on the part of composition forms.And then the next part interprets the testing contents of compositions and classifies their guts and features into different groups depending on geographic location,namely nation-wide, municipal,eastern and west-central areas. Afterwards, a comparison concerning the composition traits is made. The closing part reflects on the future direction of NCEE composition founded upon the summary of composition form and contents, and contains the proposals for perfecting the assignment of NCEE composition topic. |
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