Designed to assess college students' English ability, the College English Test (CET) is regarded as the most influential English test in China. This study investigates students' perceptions of the impact of the CET on their English-learning practices and their affective conditions. A survey was administered to 150 undergraduate students at a university in Beijing. It was found that students perceived the impact of the CET to be pervasive. In particular, the majority of the respondents indicated that the CET had a greater impact on what they studied than on how they studied. Most of the students surveyed felt the CET had motivated them to make a greater effort to learn English. Many students seemed to be willing to put more effort on the language skills most heavily weighted in the CET. About half of the students reported Language Testing in Asia Volume two, Issue three July 201278 | P a g e a higher level of self-efficacy in regard to their overall English ability and some specific English skills as a result of taking or preparing for the CET. However, many students also reported experiencing increased pressure and anxiety in relation to learning English. This study provides important evidence about how the CET influences college students' English learning in China, and directions for further research are also suggested.Keywords: Students, Perceptions, Impact, College English Test Introduction Launched by the Ministry of Education, People's Republic of China, in 1987, the College English Test (CET) is a standardized test designed to measure the English proficiency of undergraduate students in China and to determine whether their English-language ability meets the requirements of the national college English curriculum. In accordance with the national curriculum, the CET consists of two tests: Band 4 (CET-4) and Band 6 (CET-6). College students are expected to take the CET-4 at the end of their second year in college. Students are eligible to take the CET-6 only after they have passed the CET-4. The CET-4 is usually required, whereas the CET-6 is optional. Both the CET-4 and the CET-6 are held twice a year: in June, at the end of the spring semester, and in December, at the end of the fall semester. Students can take the test multiple times while in college.Traditionally, the CET consisted of five sections: listening, reading, vocabulary and structure, cloze (error-correction and/or question answering), and writing. The total possible score was 100, with a mean of 72 and a standard deviation of 12. Certificates were issued to examinees who achieved a score of over 60. However, with the issuance of the National College English Curriculum Requirements (NCECR, Ministry of Education, 2004), the CET underwent some major changes. For example, as of June 2005, a new scoring system was adopted, which has a maximum score of 710, a mean of 500, and a standard deviation of 70. Score reports are provided to examinees in order to provide feedback to guide their subsequent efforts to learn English. More importantly, as...

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Two Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) wave events over western Washington State were simulated and evaluated using observations from the Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) field campaign. The events, 12 and 17 December 2015, were simulated realistically by the WRF-ARW Model, duplicating the mesoscale environment, location, and structure of embedded KH waves, which had observed wavelengths of approximately 5 km. In simulations of both cases, waves developed from instability within an intense shear layer, caused by low-level easterly flow surmounted by westerly winds aloft. The low-level easterlies resulted from blocking by the Olympic Mountains in the 12 December case, while in the 17 December event, the easterly flow was produced by the synoptic environment. Simulated microphysics were evaluated for both cases using OLYMPEX observations. When the KH waves were within the melting level, simulated microphysical fields, such as hydrometeor mixing ratios, evinced considerable oscillatory behavior. In contrast, when waves were located below the melting level, the microphysical response was attenuated. Turning off the model’s microphysics scheme and latent heating resulted in weakened KH wave activity, while removing the Olympic Mountains eliminated KH waves in the 12 December event but not the 17 December case. Finally, the impact of several microphysics parameterizations on KH activity was evaluated for both events.

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This study provided the latest comparative genomic analysis on Stenotrophomonas maltophilia strains and focused on analyzing their genomic features that allow them to adapt to natural environments. In this study, we set S. maltophilia W18 as a typical PAH-degrading strain of this species. By discussing the genomic adaptative features of degrading PAH, we can predict genomic adaptative features of other S. maltophilia PAH-degrading strains since the core function of this species is stable.