Alignment Between Curriculum Standards And Reading Comprehension Questions In National Matriculation English Test (2018-2019)

Compared with the Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(Experimental Edition),the Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017Edition)adds achievement standards and stipulates that level 2 of the achievement standards is an important basis for the college entrance examination,but few studies are currently available about how well the function of achievement standards have been performed.What’s more,the alignment between the National Matriculation English Test(NMET)and curriculum standards profoundly affects the implementation of the curriculum standards and the process of curriculum reform.So it is necessary to conduct a survey on the alignment between the NMET and the new curriculum standards which just have been issued.Furthermore,among various types of college entrance examination questions,reading comprehension questions not only test the reading ability,which plays an important role in language skills,but also direct English teaching in school life.Therefore,studying the alignment between curriculum standards and reading comprehension questions in NMET(2018-2019)has strong theoretical and practical significance.Based on a review of reading comprehension questions in NMET,English language reading ability and standards-based alignment studies,this research selects the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum(SEC)model as a research tool and constructs a research framework which is suitable for studying the consistency of reading comprehension questions and the new Curriculum Standards.Then we analyse 15 sets of reading comprehension questions in NMET(2018-2019)and the newly-issued Curriculum Standards to obtain the alignment level of these two and explore the specific performance and characteristics.The research shows that:(1)On the whole,statistically speaking,there is no significant consistency between all test papers and Curriculum Standards,but compared with 2018’s NMET papers,the alignment level of each set of test papers in2019 and Curriculum Standards have increased overall,and the differences between them have become smaller.What’s more,compared with the alignment between autonomous MET papers and Curriculum Standards,the alignment level of national MET papers and Curriculum Standards is more stable.Further more,the alignment level of Beijing MET papers and Curriculum Standards has always been the highest in the past years.(2)In terms of content theme,both of them attach the most importance to the examination of “content”,but compared with the Curriculum Standards,the college entrance examination weakens the examination of “language” and “structure”.First,at the language level,both emphasize the examination of vocabulary and ignore that of grammar and rhetoric,but the examination of the “vocabulary” in the test paper is lower than the Curriculum Standards’ requirement.Second,at the content level,the Curriculum Standards tend to examine the “information” and “intention” in a text,but the examination papers focus on the ‘information” and “fact”.The examination field in Curriculum Standards includes “information”,“point of view”,“main idea”,“intention” and “attitude”,but the test papers often contain only a few of them,and also involves the examination of “fact” and “emotion”.Thirdly,at the structural level,both of them attach great importance to the examination of“micro-structure”.However,compared with the Curriculum Standards,the college entrance examination papers,to some extent,ignore the examination of“macro-structure” and the examination proportion of “micro-structure” is not enough.(3)In terms of cognitive level,both of them attach the most importance to the ability of “understanding and integration”,but the scope of the college entrance examinations is less than the Curriculum Standards.The former includes “positioning and extraction”,“understanding and integration” and “analysis and reasoning” while the latter additionally involves “perception and identification” and “migration and application”,and the proportion of various cognitive levels examined in the college entrance examination does not conform to the Curriculum Standards.(4)The wordingand interpretation of curriculum standards,the orientation of propositional benchmarks,and the subjective judgment of researchers are all factors that affect the alignment level in this research.Finally,based on the research process and conclusions above,this study puts forward some relevant suggestions on the future proposition work of reading comprehension questions in NMET,English reading teaching in general high school and the compiling of curriculum standards.