Wrong tape fails TOEFL takers in Zhengzhou

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Wrong tape fails TOEFL takers in Zhengzhou

At 8:30 am November 15, the TOEFL failed to run at the three test rooms at the School of Foreign Languages of Zhengzhou University, the only TOEFL test center in central China's Henan Province.

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At 8:30 am November 15, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) failed to run at the three test rooms at the School of Foreign Languages of Zhengzhou University, the only TOEFL test center in Henan Province. At 9:00 am, the teacher in charge of the test announced that the TOEFL exam could not go on because the US Educational Testing Service (ETS) mailed a wrong tape.

"From the year 1987, there has never been any problem with the test sheets or tapes," a responsible teacher surnamed Xu told the reporter, "so nobody suspected there would be a mistake." According to relevant rules, nobody is allowed to open the tapes and test sheets beforehand. Till 20 minutes before the test, when teachers monitoring the test opened the tape package, they found the tape was for oral English not for listening comprehension. However, no oral English test is assigned to this TOEFL test center.

The teachers immediately reported this incident to the coordination office of the National Education Examinations Authority of China Ministry of Education from whom they received notice through the internet at 9:00 am: cancel the test and test takers can request a full refund or a free TOEFL in the future with relevant proofs. About half of over 100 test takers at the test center had a full refund.

According to a test taker surnamed Li, the loss is beyond remedy. Usually the scores of the TOEFL are released 8 to 10 weeks after the test, and then the test takers apply to schools according to their scores. Li initially planned to apply for schools in January next year when he gets the score, but now all his efforts failed. He said if the free test is scheduled in January next year (TOEFL normally runs four times a year: January, May, August and October), the scores will come out at the end of March or early April. It will be very difficult to apply at that time when the enrollment of the universities in the United States will surely have finished. If the free test is scheduled much later, he will not have the time and energy to wait for so long, so he could only choose a full refund.

Now the National Education Examination Authority is in emergency negotiation with the ETS but there is no further information so far.

Sources say, aside from the test center of Zhengzhou University, among the over 50 test centers nationwide, the TOEFL was canceled at the test centers of the School of Foreign Languages of Shandong University in Jinan and Heilongjiang University in Harbin due to the same problem.

Article from Zhengzhou Evening, translated by PD Online staff Gao Lanrong

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