ABSTRACT
A new round of reforms of the National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in China is underway. The NMET, the National University Entrance Examination on the subject of English (see Chapter 3), brings about intense washback on school teaching and learning. This round of reforms was triggered by a top-down change in test paper development policy proposed by the Ministry of Education in 2004. It was decided that the NMET test paper, which had been developed by the National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA) annually for the whole country, should be developed locally in seven provinces and four municipalities2 following strictly the NMET testing syllabus. The NEEA should continue to develop the unifi ed paper for use in the rest of the country (see Chapter 3; Mo, 2004). From then to 2008, however, some changes have been made to the composition of the locally developed NMET papers and the Ministry of Education has tacitly consented to the changes. Some provinces have removed the listening sub-test, others have revised the writing test, and still others have replaced the proofreading subtest with a reading-and-form-fi lling item.
