I am surprised by the statement of the directors of two standardized tests for international students because they have no idea about Chinese English education and administration.First of all, never presume that the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) are difficult for Chinese students. We have English education from middle school on. English is required longer than Chinese or any other subject at all levels. Students from good families sometimes have private tutors who are even native speakers before they attend school.ÿEverybody who has a bachelor’s degree must pass a state-run college English level-4 test. Most people who get master’s degrees pass one at level-6. The level-6 test has a more difficult grammar section than the TOEFL. Other sections are very close to TOEFL. So the TOEFL is a piece of cake. I took only 20 days to prepare for it and I did very well. I have to forgive myself for not doing all the questions right on the listening part because I did not speak English nor was English spoken to me.The GRE is not difficult in the term of being labeled by Educational Testing Services (ETS) as a test for IQ. It may tell a person’s ability of self-learning, self-controlling, dedication and determination. At least 25,000 English words are new, most of them we may hear only once in our lives and that is in the GRE test. A student has to memorize all of them. Also a student has to practice some previously administrated tests.By the way, ETS sells old tests in which similar questions have been asked year after year. In college, we have little to no homework. We have one test for one class per semester. We have only two semesters a year.ÿNobody hires students to work. Most graduate students are not hired to do research. They do research to write theses. The situation may vary for different universities and institutes. In one word, we have time in college. We have self-learning ability, self-behaving ability and determination. Why is it surprising that a student starts to prepare for the GRE before entering college and by the end gets a perfect score on the test? Remember, the GRE allows students to make some mistakes but still get the whole score.ÿWith three months to one year of preparation for an average student,ÿa GREÿscore above 2000 is not a high score at all for us. After computer-based GRE was adapted, some students did so many trials and found that if they spend more time on the first five questions of each section and do them right, they will get a decidedly higher score thanÿthey would get if they got a lot of right answersÿlater but the first five wrong. This secret I give to the directors of two standardized tests for international students for free. Just take it home and work on the standardized tests, especially the GRE.In conclusion, the TOEFL is a piece of cake for most Chinese students. You treat us like we are dirty if you even suspect the high scores. GRE reflects neither our IQÿnor our honesty. It only tells you we are hard-working. What should beÿchecked, however, are the standardized tests created to fail us, but only fail on us. Caiping Su

Graduate student

Food science and human nutrition