A study of the most influencing factors in the preliminary test of the GEPT - based on GM(0,N)

The main purpose of this paper is to apply GM(0,N) model to weigh problem on the topic of a study of the most influential part in the first stage of the GEPT. ldquoEnglish proficiencyrdquo plays key role in facilitating communicating, teaching, learning and even jog operating. General English proficiency test (GEPT) - set by The Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) in 1999 in Taiwan - has been practiced for 10 years; it has been commonly used not only by schools to measure Taiwanese students' English proficiency but businesses to determine employees' ability. Many universities and institutes set up a graduation threshold of English competency by means of the GEPT. Does this test properly evaluate students' English proficiency of their four skills? This attracts a lot of attention. Therefore, there is an urgent need for English teachers to know which influences the final grade of the GEPT most and which part should be strengthen in class. First, this paper adopted the preliminary test (the first stage) of the GEPT Elementary Level, including listening and reading, as tools to evaluate students' ability of listening and reading comprehension. This paper divided the preliminary test into 2 input components (6 factors) and 1 output component (1 factor) based on the GEPT. 150 students in Chienkuo Technology University had taken preliminary test of the Elementary level. Second, applied GM(0,N) model to help the calculation of the whole data. Also, a Matlab toolbox had developed to weigh the problem. Finally, this study got two results. One, students' listening ability is worse than their reading ability. Students may be careless about those pronunciations, stuck in listening predicament, or dependent on context when decoding the meaning of words while reading. The other is the factor of reading comprehension influences the final score least. This is indicative of students' good accessibility when making guesses and using context in the process of reading. Then, this paper adopts a new approach and can extend it into other relative fields.