Correlating the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests with the University Entrance English Examinations Held in Taiwan

This study was carried out to seek the correlations of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (GMRT), a norm-referenced reading test used in the United States, with the AST and the GSAT English tests, the two most important college entrance English tests held annually in Taiwan. The AST group comprised 53 students, and the GSAT group included 171 students. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was calculated to assess the relationship. The results indicated that the AST English test and the GMRT were strongly correlated, r(53) = 0.801, p = 0.000. Significant correlation was also observed between the GSAT English test and the GMRT, r(171) = 0.637, p = 0.000. Equating the AST and the GSAT English scores with the grade equivalents (GE) derived from the GMRT reveals that students' reading grade levels can be roughly delineated via the use of the grade equivalents. In Taiwan, college students are required to read journals and textbooks in their subject areas in English. The study offers more evidence to support that even in an EFL context the American-developed standardized reading tests can be used as ability-grouping tools to assist English teachers and subject-area teachers to group their students and select textbooks that match their students' reading ability. (Contains 9 tables and 2 figures.) [The author of this paper is affiliated with China Medical University, Taiwan.]