英语四六级“变脸”：不能承受之重

CET reform has students grumbling

关于英语四六级考试改革的消息一出，立即引发社会各界的热议。有学生指出难度增加，哀叹过级无望；也有人称赞这是顺应教育发展的新举措。

There is a saying that a student’s college life isn’t finished until he or she takes the CET. Short for College English Test, the large-scale standardized language test examines the English proficiency of undergraduate students. The CET is supervised by the National College English Testing Committee.
俗话说：没有参加过四六级（CET）考试，你的大学生活就算不上圆满。CET是全国大学英语等级考试的缩写，这项大规模标准化预演考试由全国大学英语四、六级考试委员会监管，旨在测试大学生的英语水平。

The committee said recently that the CET Band 4 and 6 (CET-4 and CET-6) exams are going to change in terms of their structure and format. Apart from taking out the cloze test, changes have been made in the following three aspects, namely, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and translation.
前不久，全国大学英语四、六级考试委员会表示，将对英语四六级考试（简称为CET-4、CET-6）的试卷结构和测试题型作局部调整。除了完形填空正式“退出历史舞台”外，以下三个方面“大变脸”，即听力理解，阅读理解和翻译。

Listening comprehension
听力理解

In the new version of the CET, compound dictation is going to be replaced by dictation of words and phrases. In this part, students will hear a passage three times. They should get a general idea of the passage first, and then fill in the blanks with the exact words they’ve just heard.
改革后的四六级考试中，原复合式听写将调整为单词及词组听写。在这部分测试中，将先后播放三遍短文。学生应首先了解短文大意，然后准确无误地完成单词填空。

Though the length and difficulty of the passage will not change, many students believe that this alteration requires better listening skills.
尽管短文的长度和难度不变，许多学生认为这一调整对听力的要求更为严格。

Judging from the sample tests provided by the National College English Testing Committee, students will also need to work on their spelling, as words like “appropriately” appear in CET-4 and “statistically” in CET-6.
从全国四、六级考试委员会提供的样题来看，学生们还要提高单词拼写能力，比如四级词汇中出现的“appropriately”一词以及六级中出现的“statistically”一词.

Reading comprehension
阅读理解

Reading a long passage will replace fast reading in Section B. The length and difficulty of the passage are still the same, but it is followed by 10 statements.
原试卷第二部分的快速阅读理解调整为长篇阅读理解。篇幅长度和难度保持不变。篇章后附有10个句子，每句一题。

Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs in the passage and students need to identify the paragraph with that information.
每句所含的信息出自篇章的某一段落，考生需要找出与每句所含信息相匹配的段落。

What makes this part tricky is that some of the paragraphs may contain similar statements, which increases the difficulty of making the right choice.
这一部分的难度在于有些段落可能包含相似的语句，令学生们难以做出正确判断。

Translation
翻译

It’s easier to translate a sentence than a passage. That’s why students taking CET-4 will have to translate a passage of 140-160 words, and those taking band 6 a passage of 180-200 words.
翻译段落要比翻译单句难得多。这就是为何参加英语四级考试的考生需要翻译长度为140-160个单词的段落；而参加英语六级考试的人则需要应付长度为180-200个单词的段落翻译。

Such changes make students nervous, because they may make passing the CET more difficult. In a recent poll being conducted by Sina Weibo, more than 80 percent of the participants, now exceeding 30,000, expressed such concerns.
这样的调整令学生们感到“如临大敌”，因为改革后的四六级考试可能更难对付了。在新浪微博发起的最新民意调查中，3万多人表达了这种担忧，占总人数的80%。

Apart from translating an entire passage, the passage’s content will vary greatly, making it difficult to prepare for this part.
除了要翻译整个段落之外，文章的内容也将涉猎方方面面，加大了学生们备考的难度。

In general, however, the passages will relate to China’s history, culture, economy and social development.
不过，总体来说，翻译的内容将涉及中国的历史、文化、经济以及社会发展等方面。