A Study Of Reading Comprehension In NMET Based On CSE

As the first language proficiency scale for English learners in China,China’s Standards of English Language Ability(CSE)provides important references for foreign language teaching and assessment.As a subitem of CSE,the Reading Scale of China’s Standards of English(CSE-RS)provides a scientific and unified standard for interpreting and evaluating students’ reading ability.Reading comprehension has always occupied a vital position in large-scale examinations at home and abroad.National Matriculation English Test(NMET)as a vital examination is no exception.Therefore,based on the CSE-RS,this study aims to discover the characteristics of reading comprehension in NMET.This study selected 25 sets of NMET national papers from 2012 to 2021,and adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the reading texts and question items in the reading comprehension section.First,this study constructed an analysis framework suitable for the present study based on the parameters of CSE-RS.Secondly,according to the analysis framework,102 reading texts and 385 question items were annotated.Finally,the data were tabulated using Microsoft Office Excel 2010.The specific research questions are as follows: 1)What are the features of reading texts in terms of text type and topic based on CSE-RS? 2)What are the features of question items in terms of cognitive ability and content structure based on CSE-RS?After the analysis of the data,this thesis draws the following conclusions.In terms of reading texts,this study finds that the reading texts in the past ten years involve the six types mentioned in the CSE-RS.Among the six text types,the expository text has the highest proportion,narrative text comes next.However,according to the requirements of CSE-RS,the proportion of argumentative text should be increased.The topics of reading texts involve eight categories,among which texts on society and culture and popular science are the main ones.The reading texts in the reading comprehension section are mainly hot issues and have obvious educational and positive guiding functions.From the perspective of question items,reading comprehension in NMET focuses on students’ ability to identify and extract,as well as summarize and analyze.Among them,the proportion of summarizing and analyzing is the highest,which is the main cognitive ability tested in the reading comprehension section,while the proportion of criticizing and assessing is relatively the least.As for content structure,the examination of explicit information is the focus of reading comprehension section,followed by implicit information and linguistic structure.Judging from the trend of propositions in the past ten years,the examination of implicit information is gradually increasing,which shows that reading comprehension section has higher requirements for candidates’ abilities.Based on the conclusion,this thesis puts forward some suggestions for reading teaching and propositions.