The Comparison of Reading Comprehension Tests Between the Elementary Level GEPT and BCET

1. The Comparison of Reading Comprehension Tests Between the Elementary Level GEPT and BCET Yi-Wen Wang 指導教授: 鍾榮富 MA1C0103 鄭雅文

2. Introduction • Wei (1995) noted that English education in Taiwan placed its exclusive attention to students’ reading and writing ability in the past. However, with the birth of the educational reform – the Grade 1-9 Curriculum, four language skills receive the equal values in the classroom English instruction (Chang, 2002).

3. Introduction The writer of this study addresses the issue of reading abilities from three major aspects in the following: (1) the readability scores and their corresponding difficulty levels in the reading extracts, (2) the correlation between the reading topics and the difficult levels in the comprehension tests, and (3) the reading skills measured in the passage-based reading comprehension tests.

4. Purpose of Study The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation of the reading tests between the BCET and the Elementary Level GEPT. Specifically, the study is conducted for the following purposes: • To investigate the correlation of the reading topics between the elementary GEPT and BCET, • To explore the difficulty levels of reading extracts between the elementary GEPT and BCET, • To determine the kinds of reading skills which English tests exert the powers upon the EFL classroom instruction in high school.

5. Research Questions • Which topics have been encompassed in the Elementary Level GEPT and BCET reading comprehension tests respectively? • Which reading passages are relatively difficult in terms of the comparsion between Flesch Reading Formula and the Fry Reading Formula, the Elementary Level GEPT or BCET? • Is there any difference of the assessed reading skills between the Elementary Level GEPT and BCET?

6. Significance of Study • This study aims to provide the GEPT test developers with some information which can lead to an enhancement of the test items. • Teachers and educators are encouraged to find effective links between the teaching objectives in schools and the testing objectives of both tests. • This study can serve as a reference for those who produce study materials for the both tests.

7. Methodology

8. Data Collection • In this study, the collected English examinations are specifically referred to: • The Elementary Level of General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) • Basic Competence Test for junior high school students (BCET) from 2001 to 2008. • This research set out to classify types of topics used in the BCETs and Elementary Level GEPTs, individually.

9. The Classification of the Reading Topics Listed in the Guideline of Grade 1-9 Animals Gender equality Parts of the body Clothing/Accessories Health School & classes Colors Holidays & festivals Shapes, size & measurements Computers Houses & apartments Shopping Customs & lifestyle Human rights Special events Daily routines Interests and hobbies Sports & exercises Eating out Manners Study habits or plans OccupationsMoney & price Time, date, month, season & year TransportationNature Traveling Nation & language Neighborhood Weather & climate Food drinks Numbers Science & technology Famous or interesting places Famous or interesting people Environment & pollution Friends & personal relationship Families, family Relationship& kinship

10. Instruments used for the Data Analysis • (a) the Flesch Reading Ease Formula (Davies, 1968: 188) and Fry Readability Formula (1968) to make a comparison between the statistical judgment of the textual readability levels in Elementary Level GEPTs/BCETs, and • (b) a checklist of reading strategies, in this study, the checklist of reading strategies is sourced from the study by Tung Hsing-cheng (2008) who summarized multiple reading skills into two major types of categories, micro-reading skills, and macro-reading skills.

11. The Checklist of Reading Skills in the Reading Comprehension Test • PART I. Micro-skill Reading A1. Recognize relations between parts of a text through lexical and grammatical Cohesion devices (synonyms, repetitions, anaphoric reference, logical connecters, etc.). A 2. Use context to guess meaning of unfamiliar words and idioms/phrase. A 3. Identify discourse markers. A 4. Interpret the meaning of a sentence. A 5. Interpret topic sentences. A 6. Outline logical organization of a text. A 7 Paraphrase the words or idioms/phrases in a sentence without the contextual support. A 8 Interpret a grammatical structure in a sentence. A 9 Interpret a sentence pattern in a sentence.

12. B1. Discern main ideas. B 2. Use graphic references to locate required information. B 3. Outline the development of an argument. B 3-1 Identify the sequence: order of events. B 3-2 Identify the sequence: steps in a process B 4. Distinguish general statements from examples. B 5. Identify explicitly stated information. B 5-1 Find details. B 5-2 Judge fact and opinion. B 5-3 Identify the cause and effect. B 5-4 Paraphrase the stated information B 6.Make generalization. B 7. Make the inference. B 8. Classify the information. B 9. Summarize the information. B 10. Compare and contrast the information. B 11. Identify implicitly stated information. B 12. Recognize writer’s intention. B 13. Recognize the attitudes and emotions of the writer. B 14. Predict the outcomes B 15. Draw a valid conclusion. B 16 Calculations. PART II. Macro-skill Reading

13. Conclusion • It is evident that the reading topics seemed to have bearings on the instructional guidelines of the Grade 1-9 Curriculum. • Both in the BCETs and the Elementary Level GEPTs, quite a number of the reading issues devoted heavy weights to the junior high school students’ daily reality.

14. Conclusion • The number of difficult reading passages rose from the year of 2008. From then on, more reading texts were supposedly less comprehensible for the test participants. • Regarding the readability levels of both tests, the reading texts were readily comprehensible for test participants given that the easy level was over eighty percentage from the year 2001 to the year 2008. Also, the BCET reading test items had the easy trend year by year and they tend to emphasize the integrative knowledge.

15. Conclusion • As far as the reading skills were concerned, the macro-skills of reading held the central role in the BCETs (82.26%) and Elementary Level GEPTs (95%), especially the explicitly stated information covering searching details, judging facts and opinions, identifying the cause and effect and the like.