臺灣博碩士論文加值系統

據考選部統計，每年都有將近幾十萬名的考生參加國家舉辦的公務人員考試，而在此考試中無論選擇任何的考科類組，英文都是一個必考的科目。然由於考選部並無針對英文科發布考試大綱或出版任何官方用書，有相當多考生對於如何準備英文科的考試便面臨到困惑與障礙。有鑒於此，本研究旨在於計算出公務人員考試英語閱讀測驗的可讀性、彙整公務人員考試英文試題字彙表並比較相似度及單字難易度。

本研究發現 (a)可讀性分析發現公務人員考試英語閱讀測驗之適讀性平均值為1111L，(b)而其測驗難度低等級與高等級間特種考試有向上之趨勢而一般考試則呈現向下趨勢，(c)一般公務人員及特種公務人員考試之英語閱讀測驗，特種考試比一般考試整體難度較高出74L (d)但以年分來說，公務人員考試英語測驗之適讀性在年與年間時常有難度急遽上升或下降之狀況。

在字表研究方面，研究發現 (e) 公務人員考試英語測驗各級間的字表相似度介於35%到60%之間，顯示各等級考試間單字重複度高，(f)另比較各等級字表於BNC14,000字表分布情形發現一般公務人員考試普考及特種人員考試四等用字難度最高，而此結果亦呼應適讀性結果分析。

綜上，研究者建議受試者應提升自身之閱讀能力達到研究結果之平均值，並以廣泛閱讀之方式提升閱讀能力以為應對。最後，本研究附錄內包含公務人員測驗(含特種公務人員考試)共計三級每級共500字之高頻率單字表，供受試者及教育工作者參考。根據以上這些研究結果本研究亦提出關於英語教學上的意義與探討。

According to the Ministry of Examination (ME) around few hundred thousand of test takers participate in the civil service examination every year, which incorporates a mandatory English test in every test category. However, due to the lack of official guidelines and publications, many registrants have difficulty preparing for these English tests. Hence, the present study aims to solve this problem by measuring the readability of the English tests in the civil service exams, compile the frequency wordlists of the English tests in the civil service exams to compare level similarity and discover level difficulty.

Readability analysis results show that (a) the overall average of the English tests in civil service examination (CSE) is 1111L. (b) The test difficulty between General civil service examination (GCSE) and Special civil service examination (SCSE), SCSE showed ascending pattern; GCSE showed descending pattern. (c) The overall test difficulty between SCSE and CSE showed that SCSE is 74L harder than GCSE. (d) There are drastic readability increases and decreases between the years of CSE and SCSE.

The research on wordlists found that (e) the similarity between the three level wordlists is 35% to 60% (f) The comparison between the three level wordlists and the BNC 14,000 wordlists showed that CSE Junior and SCSE level 4 are the most difficult level.

It is suggested that test takers should first achieve the average readability of the CSE English tests suggested in the current study and enhance their reading ability to cope with the sudden difficulty increase. Lastly, the current study listed three sets of the top 500 words of the English tests in civil service exams and listed in the appendix. Pedagogical implications have also been discussed based on the result of the current study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
中文摘要 ii
ABSTRACT iii
CONTENTS iv
LIST OF FIGURES vii
LIST OF TABLES viii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background and motivation 1
1.2 Purpose of the study 7
1.3 Research questions 7
1.4 Significance of the study 8
1.5 Definition of the key terms 9

Chapter 2 Literature Review 10
2.1 Readability 10
2.1.1 Readability and Reading Comprehension 10
2.1.2 Assessing Readability – Lexile Framework for Reading 14
2.1.3 Empirical Studies using Lexile 22
2.2 Wordlists 23
2.2.1 The importance of wordlists 24
2.2.2 Compiling Wordlists 25
2.2.3 Empirical studies on wordlists 27

Chapter 3 Method 32
3.1 Corpus data 32
3.1.1 Corpus (Elementary, Junior, and Senior) 32
3.2 Data collection 33
3.3 Instruments 34
3.3.1 AntConc 34
3.3.2 Lexile Analyzer 35
3.4 Analytical procedure 38
3.5 Data analysis 40

Chapter 4 Results and Discussions 42
4.1 Readability of English tests in GCSE and SCSE 42
4.1.1 Readability differences of English tests in GCSE and SCSE by year 46
4.1.2 Readability differences of English tests between GCSE and SCSE 52
4.1.3 Readability differences of English tests in GCSE and SCSE by level 53
4.2 Frequency Wordlists of CSE English Tests 57
4.2.1 Frequency wordlist of GCSE Elementary and SCSE Level 5 58
4.2.2 Frequency Wordlist of GCSE Junior and SCSE Level 4 61
4.2.3 Frequency wordlist of GCSE Senior level 3 and SCSE Level 3 64
4.3 Comparison of the GCSE English test wordlists 67
4.4 The difficulty between the Tests 69

Chapter 5 Conclusion 74
5.1 Summary of the Major Findings 74
5.2 Pedagogical Implications 77
5.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research 78

REFERENCE 80
Appendix A 85
Appendix B 89
Appendix C 91
Appendix D 102
Appendix E 113

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