Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

The test

This weekend my students will take the College English Test (CET for short), which we’ve been preparing for all this semester.

“Do you feel ready to take the test?” I asked one class.

“Nooooo!” the collective groan went.

Not exactly the most reassuring response. But it’s a tough test.

Many of my students will be taking the CET-4, an exam all Chinese college students must pass. There’s reading, writing and listening. And topics can range from global warming to Robert Frost to even the more esoteric:

"Speeding off in a stolen car, the thief thinks he has got a great catch. But he is in for an unwelcome surprise. The car is fitted with a remote immobilizer, and a radio signal from a control centre miles a way will ensure that once the thief switches the engine off, he will not be able to start it again."

Makes me feel sorry for my students; at my college I never had to pass an examination like this.

I feel especially bad for the students who aren’t even majoring in a field that relates to English.

One of my best students recently told me she hasn’t been preparing much for the CET-6, a harder version of the exam. Her major is water purification, an engineering field, and with just so many other more important tests coming up, English has taken a backseat.

Later I asked, a senior at the school: “Will you ever use English in your career?” She had passed the CET-4 and is majoring in water purification as well.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said in Mandarin. “We won’t have to use English in our jobs.”

For other students, like my international finance majors, English is important. But still, I’m not sure it’s so necessary for all college students to pass a test on the language.

Recently I had lunch with a student named Lois. “Your class is different from my other classes,” she said. “We have to actually use our heads and think. In the other classes we just have to memorize for tests.”

Her comment makes me think the Chinese education system just decided to have the CET examination, for the sake of having a test. The criticism I often about Chinese schools is that all students learn about is how to pass exams.