| The Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 edition)puts forward the academic achievement standards and suggestions for test design of College Entrance English Examination based on core competencies,and it stipulates that the second level of the academic achievement standards is the primary basis for test design in English Matriculation English Test(NMET).However,few studies have shown how well the function of academic achievement standards has been performed.What is more,the alignment between the NMET and curriculum standards has a profound impact on the implementation of curriculum standards and curriculum reform.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a systematic study on the alignment between the NMET and curriculum standards.Among different types of College Entrance English Examination questions,the reading ability tested in reading comprehension questions plays a vital role in language ability and directs the English teaching in school.Therefore,it is of great significance to study the alignment between the reading comprehension questions of the NMET and curriculum standards.This study takes the General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 edition,2020 revision)and the reading comprehension questions of the NMET(2020-2021)as the research subjects.By drawing lessons from the Survey of Enacted Curriculum(SEC)model,and combined with the literature review and subject characteristics,this study tries to construct an alignment analysis model from the content theme and cognitive level dimension which is suitable for studying the alignment.The reading comprehension questions and curriculum standards will be coded and analyzed to get the consistency coefficient,aiming to answer their overall consistency level,specific performance and characteristics in the content theme and cognitive level dimension.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)On the whole,there is no statistically significant consistency between English reading comprehension questions and the curriculum standards from the statistical point of view.However,compared with2020 NMET papers,the alignment between the reading comprehension questions in 2021 and the curriculum standards have increased overall,the alignment of the new NMET papers in 2021 is the highest.(2)In the first dimension of the content theme,both the curriculum standards and the English reading comprehension questions attach great importance to the examination of “content”.However,the latter weakens the examination of the “language”.From the second dimension of the content theme,both the curriculum standards and NMET papers pay attention to the examination of “vocabulary” while ignoring the examination of other factors at the language level;at the content level,the“information” has received absolute attention in the curriculum standards and NMET papers,but their examination proportion and types of the factors are different;at the structure level,NMET papers pay attention to the examination of “microstructure” while the curriculum standards pay more attention to the “macrostructure” of the text.(3)In the first dimension of the cognitive level,both the curriculum standards and the reading comprehension questions focus on examining of application ability.In the second dimension of the cognitive level,the types of cognitive abilities tested in the reading comprehension questions are less than the types in curriculum standards,which means the examination of students’ cognitive abilities in NMET papers is not comprehensive enough.Besides,the requirements on students’ cognitive abilities in English reading questions are generally lower than the curriculum standards,for example,many English reading comprehension questions are designed to test students’ ability of “summarizing”,while there is no examination of the higher-level cognitive abilities required by the curriculum standards.Finally,based on the research process and conclusions,this study puts forward some relevant implications on the future test design of English reading comprehension questions in NMET,English reading teaching in general high schools,the compilation of curriculum standards and suggestions for further research. |
