Poor results in English composition were highlighted yesterday when the College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC) released the results of this year’s second round of college entrance examinations.
The second round allows test-takers who were not satisfied with their first-round grade to retake the examination.
CEEC deputy director Hung Tung-kuei (洪冬桂) told a press conference that of the 84,047 second round participants, 7,172 received a zero grade for the section where they were asked to write an article describing an unforgettable smell. Only one examinee obtained close to a perfect score in the section, Hung said.
In the first round earlier this year, 15,523 examinees scored zero in the English composition section after being asked to write a composition based on a comic strip.
Compared with the statistics from last year’s second round of tests, the number of those receiving zero in the writing section was up 1,004. In the translation section, 7,810 people obtained zero in the second round.
However, that figure was down 4,198 from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Hung told the Taipei Times the center would not set “ethical” grading criteria for the English composition section after one test-taker submitted a composition which contained sexual material.
One of the evaluators for this year’s test said recently that the colleague who had to grade the article did not know whether to grade the composition in accordance with the center’s criteria or give the examinee a low score for violating ethics.
The CEEC’s criteria states that teachers should judge an article based on its content, organization, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
The center had not been informed about the case, Hung said, adding that it was the responsibility of the teachers who grade the tests to determine how to grade a composition. The center was only concerned about the final grades, Hung said.
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