The College English (CET) is a national standardized test sponsored by the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education and administered by the National College English Testing Committee. The Administration Office of the CET, set up in the School of Foreign Languages of Shanghai JiaoTong University, is the standing body of the CET Committee in charge of the day-to-day administrative affairs of the test.

　　The office has altogether eight members of staff. Four are from the School of Foreign Languages of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (two doctors, one senior engineer, and one lecturer), each attending to his/her own duties: two in charge of the paperwork, the test paper editing and administrative affairs, one computer and network, one statistics. Four office workers are employed by the Committee. Two of them look after the office routine work, and the other two finance and accounting.

　　Under the guidance of the CET Committee, the office organizes meetings concerning the CET and the CET-Spoken English Test (CET-SET), such as the item setting and moderation meeting, the CET score equating meeting, the CET-SET quality control meeting, the range-finders meeting for the CET and the CET-SET, the CET supervisors and their assistants meeting, etc. Meanwhile, the office is held responsible for all the administrative work of the tests, including the editing of the test papers, the printing and distribution of test materials, the calculation, equating, reporting and releasing of the scores, etc. The office is also responsible for improving the public relations on the part of the Committee. In addition to the administrative work, the office members are actively involved in research programs related to the test administration, test design and test validation. The office is also in direct contact with the provincial Department of Higher Education to guarantee the smooth implementation of the tests. The office also coordinates administrative affairs in the three CET test centers (Test Center in Beijing, Test Center 2 in Shanghai, and Test Center 3 in Wuhan).

　　To be more specific, the responsibilities of the Administration Office of the CET include:

Before the test:

• Collecting registration data of CET test-takers from each province, autonomous region and municipality;
• Checking the data and arriving at a total number of test-takers for preparing the CET test materials;
• Designing registration software and other materials concerning test administration;
• Providing guidance and help to the provincial Department of Higher Education to ensure the smooth implementation of the tests;
• Test paper proofreading;
• Assisting test centers in training examiners and preparing training materials;
• Ensuring the printing quality and the timely distribution of test materials; etc.

• Keeping close contact with the supervisors and deputy supervisors of each province, autonomous region and municipality;
• Dealing with any urgent issues that might pop up on the day of the test.

• Processing the data of test scores sent by each test center;
• Test score equating;
• Content analysis of the test paper;
• Score releasing and reporting, etc.