Comparison Between the Discrete-Point Test and the Communicative Test

Foreign language testing is significant for the foreign language teaching and the learners. By taking different kinds of tests, they receive feedback, which will help the people better understand what point they have reached in the course and how far they have advanced and what remains for them to learn. This paper briefly reviews the history of foreign language testing and traces its development from the pre-scientific period to the psycholinguistic-sociolin-guistic period. Then the discrete-point test and the communicative test are discussed and compared. Lastly, this paper points out that these two types of tests both have inherent problems, however they can absorb each other's de-sirable qualities and serve different purposes of language test.……