Fundamental Concerns in High-Stakes Language Testing:

designed for educational purposes, administered on a very large scale, and used for making high-stakes decisions. This paper discusses the key issues facing the CET during the course of its development in the past two decades. It argues that the most fundamental and critical concerns of large-scale high-stakes testing are test validity and fairness as defined in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999). The CET has a current annual test population of over 18 million, and the results of the test, intentionally or unintentionally, may affect university graduates ’ employment opportunities, the conferment of a bachelor’s degree, and the granting of a residence permit in big cities. The CET test developer, therefore, has been taking measures to make sure that no test taker will be potentially disadvantaged by such factors as test content, test condition, response mode and format, scoring o