This article reports the results of an investigation, based on a 170 000-word corpus
of test performance, of the validity of College English Test-Spoken English Test
(CET-SET) group discussion by examining the degree of interaction among candidates
in the group discussion task with respect to a set of interactional language
functions (ILFs) to be assessed. The results show a low degree of interaction among
candidates in the CET-SET group discussion. Consequently, the inadequate elicitation
of ILFs from candidates may well pose a problem for measuring their speaking ability
in this regard.
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