Abstract

In general, reading test was recognized as an important part in English tests. Therefore, evaluating content validity of reading comprehension is of necessity.
 In China, The Test for English Majors Band8 (TEM8) is a criterion-referenced English achievement test for English major students while International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an international language testing system to assess candidates’ language ability. Making a comparative analysis between these two tests’ reading comprehension can help us gain much more direct information to be analyzed so that we can have a clearer understanding about the reading teaching and learning situation in China
The purpose of this paper is to carry out a study with a comparative analysis of the reading comprehension in TEM8 and IELTS. And in terms of content validity, to evaluate the test quality of these two tests. This study is based on the analysis of 48 newest consecutive reading comprehensions of TEM8 and IELTS (24 each). With the help of the testing syllabuses of TEM reading comprehension part and IELTS reading comprehension part, a revised framework will be put forward based on Bachman’s framework of task characteristics. And the analysis is operated in two aspects: the analysis of critical characteristics of reading tests and the analysis of critical characteristics of the reading questions. According to the results of such comparison, implications are obtained for TEM8 test designers to improve the quality of the reading tests: to make the topics and question sets various. Besides, for English learners, better understanding can be obtained in the aspects of how to improve reading skills: expanding vocabularies and learning how to analyze the difficult long sentences.

Keywords: TEM8; IELTS; reading comprehension; comparative analysis

摘要

通常，阅读理解被人们认为是英语测试中十分重要的一部分。正因如此，对于阅读理解有效性的分析就显得尤为重要了。
中国的英语专业八级考试（专八）是一个全国性的大规模标准化考试，而国际英语语言测试系统（雅思）则是一个国际性的语言测试。因此，以阅读理解为契机，将两者进行对比分析能帮助我们获取更直观的信息去进行分析，从而使我们对中国的英语教学现状有更清晰的认识。
这篇论文的目的在于通过专八中阅读理解和雅思中阅读理解的对比分析得出研究结果。根据内容效度去评估这两者的测试质量。研究基于48篇最新的、连续的阅读理解（专八雅思各24篇），并且以专八和雅思的阅读理解教学大纲为基础，运用巴赫曼和帕尔默提出的任务特征框架修改得到一个新框架进行对比分析的。从两方面进行：对阅读测试文本特性的分析以及对阅读设置问题特性的分析。该分析发现，专八应借鉴雅思，在阅读文本的选择和题型设置方面变得更具多样化。而研究结果也对英语教学起到了反拨作用：学生应不断扩充词汇，并且学习掌握长难句的分析技能。

关键词：英语专业八级考试；雅思；阅读理解；对比分析