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Q: Why are Chinese people, or complete idiots designing the English tests here?
It doesn't make any sense. Earlier today, I took a look at my wife's CETS (or whatever it was) tests. Her English is much better than all of her classmates.
Almost immediately, I noticed dozens of grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, all of which the test never asked the student to fix. The second thing I noticed was that the tests were pointless, and often had no relation to the subject at hand.
There were also many multiple-choice questions which had 2-4 grammatically and contextually-valid answers, but only one of them was acceptable (incidentally, it happened to be grammatically incorrect every time).
Is this a case of Chinese people deciding what to test, or a very uneducated native speaker who never graduated High School? Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it almost seems like these tests are deliberately designed to fail students.
11 years 24 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Well, the conspiracy makes sense in a way: Students fail, pay to pass the test again, and company makes more money.
But I'm not saying it's the case either.
Perhaps the teachers are simply incompetent. And that would explain a lot about "english professionals" speaking Chinglish.
By the way, this question's title could use a little revision, it might offend those who only read titles and jump to conclusions without reading the actual text.
A student of mine wanted to do some extra studying, so she borrowed some books from the school library. Even the best of them had some mistakes, I kid you not. They were small grammatical mistakes, but I told her that in the future those could screw her up, that she shouldn't study it too closely. I just wanted to take a pen and fix all the mistakes, but it wasn't my book.
I know exactly what you're talking about. I tried to help a colleague of mine study for her CET-4 test. She had already paid quite a bit of money for English classes and the fee to take the test itself. She brought her study book and some practice tests (with answer key) for me to look at. Now, I'm no English major nor even an English teacher....but like you said a lot of the multiple choice questions had MULTIPLE CORRECT ANSWERS. I felt bad for the girl....and then wondered how all these English majors are actually passing their CET 4, 6, 8 exams 
诸葛亮:
Hers is a CET 6 or something. She paid like 3 times, and from what I can tell, she should've gotten an 80% at least. Somehow she failed it each time. I wonder why... oh, right... it's nothing but crap.
They're passing their tests because they have the money to do it, or they're using a fake diploma. Lots of people do that here.
We were running an Australian accredited university preparation course in China, and had to give the students in China the same test that all students throughout the world get, including Australian students.
The Director of Studies insisted on rewriting the test to make the syntax and grammar easier for Chinese students to understand. The results were horrendous, and full of mistakes. It seemed no matter what we said or did, he was convinced that his version of the test was superior to that designed and produced by the Australian TAFE college.
It took a letter from an Australian Government department head to convince him that all students had to take the same exam. He then insisted that we mark them easier, but we had to explain that the exams were marked in Australia. Then he insisted that we give the students the answers because they wouldn't be able to understand the questions.
The idea of the students actually learning the language to be prepared for university in the west seemed be of little importance. It was more important that they got good marks, regardless of the quality, or correctness, of the questions or answers.
GuilinRaf:
My previous school in Guilin lost its accreditation from a British school for doing the same thing.
They were passing students even with honors, yet they could not understand ANY English at all. Only two of the students who went to England actually completed their studies.
The books at first recommended and then assigned by the British schools were ignored in favor of local English books which the foreign teachers flat out refused to use and even told the students NOT to buy them as they were useless and we would not be using them at all.
As for the tests, here too, the teachers were giving the students the answers beforehand, so they were acing the tests but had no idea at all how to communicate in English. After many warnings, the British school no longer accepted the students from our school and withdrew all support from it.
Hulk:
Funny you mention that. A friend of mine from Fujian province attended such a school.
The result? Well, she couldn't even speak basic English. She somehow studied in Australia. Upon graduation, she immediately went back to China, and I never heard from her again.
She google translated her way through college, and somehow passed. The rest of the students helped her with the courses... she was pretty smart, and loved her country quite a bit, but she couldn't speak enough English.
We only talked using Chinese.
MissA:
That's terrible. I love the idea of Australian universities being a mixing ground for talented young people from around the world but FFS, they have to speak English!
GuilinRaf:
Fully agree Miss A!!!
In the States, many universities for the sake of "multi cultural plurality" are admitting students who cannot speak English. They do not understand the lessons BUT the professors are encouraged to pass them anyway. To not do so, would be "racist" in their minds.....
Hulk:
MissA/GR,
I can give many examples of this. A lot of people come to America from China and are unable to understand basic English. One of my friends came here not knowing a SINGLE word of English, and went to and graduated High School here!
Why? She got passed by the corruption squad.
Some of these teachers, professors and headmasters were visiting these young ladies at their homes or dorms at night time!!!
Now she just graduated from college. It takes her 2-4 hours to scan through a document she's supposed to read, since she barely understands English. She uses google translate exclusively, and is now working on her... MBA? Awesome, huh?
I'm her friend, so I keep my mouth shut... but her English is really bad. I've met people in China with amazing English who have never had the opportunity to study abroad, and I can't help but feel something is horribly wrong here.
Prejudice... the Chinese love / hate westerners. They simply want us as "window-dressing". They will not accept our ideas or suggestions. They think they're smarter, yet admit they need us. It's a true paradox but it's common throughout the country.
Chinese design and grade the test. There's no way any foreigner input would be allowed. It is a matter of pride and protecting jobs. Neither accuracy, validity nor relevance matter in the slightest. This will not change. It is possible for an excellent or very good Chinese student to fail or do poorly on these tests.
Sorry, no good news here. Call me Mr. Sunshine.
GuilinRaf:
I am many times asked to proofread something. A paper, and advertisement, etc. By now, I know that it is a 50-50% chance that they will actually USE what I give them. However, if the neighbors kid, who read all the "Crazy English " books or the husband of the best friend spent a week in the US/UK , then I know my work is going to be "overruled"....
The point of learning a language is to understand native speakers of that language & be understood by everyone who speaks that language. Local Chinese teachers of English understand Chinglish because they've been exposed to bad English all their life. They have learned to understand their students. I've been exposed to good English most of the time, so I have a hard time understanding bad English.
As for the tests, they're designed to fail as many students as possible. Mistakes are common in English textbooks that are supposed to teach students correct sentence structure & natural turn of speech.
GuilinRaf:
That would definitely explain why I must use mostly Chinese when speaking to many people who have passed (supposedly) the CET-6 and CET-8 tests.....
Not sure about the tests but it could be both. I knew a guy who was grading papers that admitted that he would never pass the student. Out of a score of 0 to 5 he would give a 0 or a 1 which is failing. I didn't understand it but he also had a friend who was a teacher of those tests Ielts etc., and I assume they were pulling the same stunt flunking everybody on purpose.
The point is he said this and it kept going on and the chinese employers did nothing so I guess all the tests are deliberately made for you to fail. Or the person grading wants you to fail because they think you will keep coming back and paying money to take the test again.....it's a screwed up system that's why I'm glad I have never been subjected to it before. If I took a test and the final outcome was already determined before I actually attempted it that would suck! Life would suck!
It seems that the more I read here the more I realize that the poor Chinese are being taught English by US high school graduates that can't even read or write English, never mind teaching it to Chinese. It is the blind leading the blind. Franck3
So funny. I just took the English test my company uses on new employees....and I got 6 out of 30 incorrect. There is no way I got any wrong, they were obviously taken from one of the many crappy English test books that have mistakes in. I've looked in the test books in book stores before and the number of mistakes or incorrect answers is just startling.
Hulk:
I just tried my wife's English test to see if this was true. Sure enough, I failed miserably.
