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No need to repeat it – you can pass the CET-4 in just ten days! ! ! The method makes you bleed! !

2009-04-11View Original

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1. For listening, there are three types of questions: dialogues (ten conversations), passages (three short texts), and compound dictation (a type of listening test that involves listening to a passage and then writing it down). The first type is tested every year, while the latter two are tested alternately over the years, with passages being tested more frequently. The easiest sections to score well on are dialogue and passage; all you need to remember is one key tip: the events described in the dialogue always take a negative turn. To give a few examples: for instance, in a conversation one might ask whether the professor’s lectures are difficult – they certainly are. One might also ask if there is a lot of homework – there definitely is. Will a man’s invitation be accepted by a woman? Never; it’s always some silly guy who extends an invitation to Mary. He asks her if she wants to go swimming, skating, dancing, or eating out, and Mary’s reply is always that she really wants to, but she won’t go. She has taken the CET exam for over a decade now, yet she has never gone; she won’t go this year either. So remember, in any conversation, unexpected things will inevitably happen. Let’s take another example: two options – Train A arrives on time, while Train B is late. If you were the person setting up the conversation, how would you arrange it? Of course, it would be the train that’s late; what’s there to say about it arriving on time? After all, it can’t be that both people are idiots, or that they’ve just started dating and come to the station with nothing to talk about. The man says, “Wow, the train arrived on time!” and the woman replies, “Huh!” It’s really on time! So being on time is impossible; bad things are usually the ultimate outcome! For compound dictation, I was lucky enough not to have to take this test last semester, but I think such questions are indeed quite difficult. One has to listen carefully; even if one doesn’t understand, they have to guess based on the context. Leaving a question blank surely results in no points, but maybe the teacher will give a point if the guess is not too wrong! I’d like to add that you must never listen to past exam papers, whether they’re in tape form or as MP3 files; they will only make you more annoyed. I simply saved some songs on my MP3 player, such as BACK STREET BOY’s \"As Long As You Love Me, I Promise You\" and Mariah Carey’s \"Always Be My Baby\", etc. When I’m tired, I take a short nap in my room and listen to music to relax! 2. Reading is the key aspect of our exams; the score obtained on reading questions directly affects whether you pass or not. Here I will discuss each type of question. (i) Fact-detail questions: From my observations, the areas that are always tested include those where items are listed, such as first, second, in addition…, as well as those where examples or comparisons are given, such as as, such, for instance, etc. There are several rules to keep in mind: 1) Options that copy or seemingly copy the original text are generally not the correct answer; those with synonyms used instead are the right answers. 2) Options that express more specific meanings, i.e., those with longer sentences, are usually not the answer, while those that are general and abstract are the correct answers. 3) Options containing absolute words like must, never, merely, etc., are not the answer; those with less definite expressions, such as could, might, possible, etc., are the correct answers. (ii) Word meaning and semantic judgment questions often involve nouns that refer to meanings in the surrounding context as well as phrases with multiple meanings. Additionally, complex sentences, due to the intricate relationships between their components, are also frequently used to test comprehension skills. One rule to keep in mind is that options whose meanings are only superficially similar to those of the word in question are generally not the correct answers. (iii) Reasoning and judgment questions can be approached using the following techniques: 1) If inference is required based on a certain passage, focus only on that section specified in the question; 2) Options that use tentative, rather than absolutely definitive, phrasing such as “tend to” or “often” are usually the correct answers; 3) Answers that align with common sense and logic are generally correct. For example, China is relatively poor because of its large population, and Americans tend to be overweight because they eat too much at places like KFC and McDonald’s. (iv) The main idea questions and those asking about opinions and attitudes are relatively difficult; people scored low on these types of questions, so don’t be too concerned if you do poorly on them. For these two questions, I was under a lot of pressure at the time; I only read the first and last paragraphs before making my choices quickly. In the end, the results were pretty good – I scored over 200 points in the reading section! 3. Vocabulary: For this type of question, once you’ve read Even’s blog, get rid right away of those books that use methods such as vocabulary chaining, spark memory techniques, black-and-white memory methods, family-tree-style memorization, or chain-based memorization… Give them away, keep them safe, or sell them next year to those naive freshmen who don’t know better; otherwise, use them to prop up the corner of a table – it’s nice to have something square! I think memorizing words is a practice with an extremely poor ratio between effort and outcome; it’s utterly foolish and superstitious! I did it that way back then: two days before the exam (make sure it’s not too early, otherwise you might forget), I went through the CET-4 phrase lists at the end of the textbook. During the exam, if any of the options contained words or phrases from the textbook, I didn’t hesitate to choose them! I’d also like to remind everyone not to waste too much time on the 30-word questions; remember, each question is worth only 0 points. 5 points, and for reading, it’s 2 points – save some time to read! I used my own method along with a 1/4 chance of guessing, and in the end I scored over 100 points in the comprehensive section (including the cloze test). 4. The cloze test and short-answer questions alternate from year to year, with the former appearing far more often than the latter. If you encounter a cloze test, you should be glad – it’s the easiest part of the entire CET-4 exam. I didn’t even take a look at the questions at first; I started guessing randomly using the answer sheet only when the bell signaling the end of the exam rang. I was sitting in the last row, and when the teacher who collected the papers came over to me, I still had five questions left unanswered. I said to her affectionately, “It’s very hot; you must be tired too.” She smiled and replied, “Thank you, I’m fine.” At that moment, I finished marking all the questions. Those who have taken the college entrance examination know that it can take more time to complete one cloze test question than two reading comprehension questions, but what about the score? I believe everyone knows what it is. Fortunately, each question of this type in the CET-4 is worth only 0 points. 5 points – even the true experts won’t score more than 5 points on this question, but it will take them about 30 times as long as it does for you (I myself took only around 18 seconds to solve it). I’ve always believed that for cloze tests, the real intention of the question setters is not to assess your knowledge level, but rather to see if you can manage your time properly! If you unfortunately come across short-answer questions, to be honest, I don’t have any good solutions either. Though such questions appear once in a thousand years, I consider them the most challenging of all in the CET exam; the person who creates them must be from another planet! When encountering such a problem, if you’re interested, give it a try; if you really can’t solve it, then just accept it! There’s a saying at universities: In one’s life, who hasn’t stepped in feces a few times! 5. Writing – I occasionally think this is the easiest type of question to handle and also the one for which it’s easiest to score points! Spending just 9 seconds before the exam can potentially earn you a high score of 9 points or more out of 100. At that time, I simply memorized two relatively difficult classic sentence patterns before the exam. During the exam, I tried to use one of them at the beginning and another at the end. For the rest of the text, I either wrote freely, or included some English lyrics that I liked (note: not in Pinyin), or wrote some funny sentences from Li Yang’s Crazy English. Don’t doubt my approach. Now let me explain why this method works: during grading, each teacher has a large stack of papers to go through, far more than the review materials you had during your college entrance exams. Think about it – who, in their right mind, would have the patience to read so many English articles? On top of that, grading usually takes place in the hot summer months, when the weather is oppressive and people are irritable. Having to spend days inside, reading these boring and simplistic articles, with no access to the Internet, no QQ, no MSN, and certainly no possibility of writing a blog – even a kind person would go crazy from it. So when grading papers, they usually only look at the opening and closing sentences, as well as checking whether the word count is sufficient. Some teachers who are in a romantic relationship and in a good mood will also check for any incorrect words. To prevent this, I remind everyone that our goal is not to write a groundbreaking article, but rather to avoid making any mistakes—neither in speech nor in writing—within thirty minutes. In a word, our goal is – no tooth decay! ! Furthermore, when writing short essays, it is best to use a black pen rather than ones of other colors, especially ballpoint pens. Additionally, great care must be taken to keep the handwriting neat; it is said that exam graders generally have nearsighted eyes and are more sensitive to black, as well as more accustomed to it. The same goes for writing; the neater it is, the clearer he can read it, the better his mood becomes, and thus our score gets higher! It took me eight minutes to complete this question, but my writing score was 80 out of a total of 710 points!
Reply #22009-04-12
“The events described in the dialogue always take a negative turn, and bad things usually end up being the outcome! ”This is the first time I’ve heard of A; it’s been informative. Thanks, LZ

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