Taiwan's new national English exams, the General English Proficiency Tests, are halfway complete. Candidates can already take elementary, intermediate and high intermediate exams. These exams look good so far. The English is fine, and the tests are designed well.
The Language Testing and Training Center (LTTC) at National Taiwan University is finishing the final two tests: advanced and superior. This is where I begin to worry. The LTTC says that to pass the reading portion of the superior-level test, one must have a level of reading speed and understanding equal to that of a native speaker who has received higher education.
This is extremely difficult. To understand just how difficult it will be, think of Taiwan's abolished Joint College Entrance Examination. That English test was famous for being poorly written. A college professor in the US once commented, "It seems like a good high-school student wrote it." To put it another way, the writers of the English section of the joint examination would probably not be able to pass the new superior-level tests.
I fear that the LTTC, in attempting to create such a difficult test, will end up loading the tests with rare words and long, confusing sentences. That is what happened to Japan's English tests. Japan also has national English exams, known as the Eiken. In a disturbing coincidence, the Eiken tests also have five stages, which match the five levels of Taiwan's new exams. The worst Eiken tests are the final two, the ones matching Taiwan's uncompleted advanced and superior tests. Before Taiwan releases these two tests, I hope it studies Japan's Eiken to learn what not to do.
The Eiken tests are terrible for two reasons. First, they are full of difficult, rare, multi-syllable words that English-speakers seldom use. How can an English exam test with words English-speakers don't use? The students who memorize rare words and phrases are not masters of English.
Just like their counterparts in Japan, Taiwanese students memorize tons of difficult vocabulary without learning correct usage. Look at these example sentences from an actual textbook used in Taiwan: "They started an amphibian attack to annihilate enemies exhaustively" and "Those traitorous cliques are ambidextrous towards the king" are two such examples. Another example might even scare the reader: "My letter to mother must have miscarried, for she did not receive it." Obviously, this textbook's author has no problem memorizing difficult words, but doesn't know how to use them.
Rather than testing an ever-expanding slew of obscure vocabulary, tests should check the students' ability to use common words naturally. English speakers, for example, refer to the villain in movies as the "bad guy," but most people in Taiwan say the "bad man." Why memorize obscure vocabulary when it can always be checked in a dictionary anyway?
The second problem with Japan's Eiken is grammar. The Eiken attempts to check grammar by creating long, run-on sentences with a confusing mix of subjects, verbs and direct objects. The poor student then has to sift through the tortured sentence for the grammar mistakes.
My first reaction upon seeing the sentences on the Eiken was that the test's creators had no idea how to write a clear sentence. Sentences intended to test English ability had instead become perfect examples of terrible writing.
The English tests that the LTTC has released so far are well-designed and well-written. I hope the remaining tests are equally good. That means they must avoid the mistakes of Japan's system and focus on the students' ability to distinguish between correct and incorrect usage of common words and grammar. This skill is actually much more difficult, and much more useful.
Geoff Sant is a writer and linguist based in Taipei.
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