I've been very curious as to what is actually tested on these exams since some worksheets and tests that my students have shown me seem extremely difficult, obscure and absurd. A lot of the questions are about nit-picky grammar, words that are out-of-date or little-known or old-fashioned "culture" facts.
I told Steve that I wanted to take one of the more difficult tests to see how I could do. The best he could do was get me a copy of one of the practice tests. Here is what was included on the exam (185 min.): 1. Take notes on a mini-lecture. The notes are graded and are used to answer some fill in the blank questions. 2. Listening comprehension. Answer questions based on a passage that is heard. 3. News broadcast. Answer questions after listening to the news. 4. Reading comprehension. Answer questions after reading a passage. 5. General Knowledge. 6. Proofreading and error correction. 7. Translation. English to Chinese and Chinese to English. 8. Essay (Topic: "Sowing the seeds, nurturing growth and harvesting the rewards").
I was most intrigued by the "General Knowledge" section because my students always talked about trying to study for it. After seeing the ten questions, I think it could be pretty difficult to study for this section as the test could cover anything. Do you want to give it a try? How would you do on this part of the test?
General Knowledge - 10 minutes
1. The second largest trade port in Britain is ____.
a) London b) Liverpool c) Birmingham d) Glasgow
2. The state of California is on _____.
a) the Atlantic Coast b) the Gulf of Mexico c) the Pacific coast d) Caribbean Sea
3. On April 19th, 1775, "the fire of ____" signed the outbreak of the War of Independence.
a) Concord b) Boston c) Philadelphia c) Lexington
4. It was not until December 7th, 1941 when the base of the American Pacific fleet, ____, was suddenly attacked by the Japanese air force and navy that the U.S. finally participated in WWII.
a) Normandy b) North Africa c) Pearl Harbor d) Sicily
5. The youngest president of the U.S. is _____.
a) John F. Kennedy b) Richard Nixon c) Thomas Jefferson d) Dwight Eisenhower
6. _____ is a typical feature of Swift's writings.
a) Bitter satire b) Elegant style c) Casual narration d) Complicated sentence structure
7. Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are the following works except ______.
a) Hamlet b) King Lear c) Romeo and Juliet d) Othello
8. _____ is the most influential linguistic school in the second half of the 20th century.
a) systematic-functional grammar b) transformational-generative grammar
c) Prague school d) London school
9. Normally, a syllable consists of three parts, that is, the ____, the _____ and the _____.
a) onset, peak, coda b) peak, coda, onset c) peak, onset, coda d) coda, peak, onset
10. According to morphology, "-ful" in the word "colorful" is called a(n) _____ morpheme, while "-es" in "apologies" is called a(n) ______ morpheme.
a) derivational, free b) inflectional, bound c) inflectional, free d) derivational, inflectional
I have to wait to see if they think my answers are right. What did you get? And how many American university students do you think would dominate that section?
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