Studying in a foreign country means that you will face a new education system in that country, and each country has made its unique evaluation and testing system for its students. Studying in China's university, it is also important for you to know how you are going to be evaluated and tested at the end of the course.
Evaluating students' performance
Among China's universities, the ways to evaluate students consist of quizzes during the term, examination at the end of the terms, as well as the examination and defense of graduation dissertations.
(1) Quizzes during the term
a. Checking the homework
Teachers may assign homework for students to do after class and students are demanded to complete at a scheduled date. Teachers may record the scores of the homework and their discussions and presentation, and take them as a criterion to decide whether students are legible to pass the examination at the end of the term.
b. Quiz or written test
Teachers may give a quiz at the end of the class or after finishing a unit. In many cases the tests may be carried out when students are unprepared.
(2) Overall evaluations at the end of the terms
Examinations are the primary forms to give students overall evaluations. In some courses, the teachers may adopt oral tests and written exams at the same time.
Oral tests are mainly to check students' language proficiency. In this test, teachers may ask some questions and let students to answer or present some topics for them to select and talk about after a short time’s preparation. Written examinations are traditional Chinese forms: open-book examination and close-book examination.
(3)Examination, assessment and oral defense of graduation thesis
At present, undergraduates are not required to defend their thesis publicly. Some universities do not carry out the process of thesis defense considering the large number of students. However, some other institutions may demand a part of the students to have oral defense. It varies from institutions to institutions. All postgraduates, however, have to conduct oral defense of their thesis.
The defenses of thesis are usually held by the Board of Academic Affairs of a department with the presence of relevant members from the Board of Academic Affairs of the university and sometimes school leaders. Experts and scholars who are engaged in the special areas may be invited to put forward their advice.
Usually an oral defense would last for one or two hours. After the chairman declares the beginning of a defense, the author of the thesis would introduce the main contents, the guiding principles and practical significance of the topic. Then members of the defense committee would ask questions that are related to the topic, and the author must offer an answer. After the defense, the Board of Academic Affairs of the university and the department would discuss and vote for the passing of the thesis with reference to the comments made by the oral defense committee members.
Evaluation of students' achievement
The evaluation of students’ achievement in China's institution of higher learning is pass and fail. Schools in China often use 100-mark system with 60 as the passing line, or the five-grade marking system with A, B, C, D, E. Generally speaking, a score above 90 is excellent (A), 80-90 good (B), 70-79 fair (C); 60-69 pass (D) and below 60 fail (E).