Kaoyan English case studies

Kaoyan English · Put your knowledge to work in context.

Kaoyan English (考研英语) is the English component of China's National Postgraduate Entrance Examination, the standardized test taken by candidates applying to master's programs at Chinese universities. It is administered in two versions: English I (201), generally required for academic master's degrees, and English II (204), generally used for professional master's degrees and some programs. The Kaoyan English case studies are 5 cases and about 3,173 words.

Cloze under the clock: buying marks with collocation before coherence

Li Wei is doing a timed cloze: one passage, 20 blanks, 15 minutes. The passage argues that right-to-repair laws will change how long consumer goods last.

678 words, about 3 min 2

Reading Part A: purpose stems versus true-but-irrelevant details

Zhang Yue is 14 minutes into the 18 she budgets for one Reading Part A text. The passage (about 420 words) describes a 2019 four-day-week trial at a firm's New Zealand office: output rose roughly 20%, staff turnover fell, and the trial was extended.

663 words, about 3 min 3

Part B headings: keyword overlap is not the main idea

In a heading-matching task, five paragraphs (A–E) must be matched to five of seven headings. Paragraph C reads: 'Cost, too, has proved harder to pin down than promoters promised.

643 words, about 3 min 4

Part C translation: contrastive frames, passives and false friends

Part C gives a 150-word passage with underlined sentences and 15 minutes. One underlined sentence reads: 'It is not so much that the policy failed as that it was never given a chance to succeed.' Another reads: 'While the report acknowledges the gains, it warns that they may prove fragile.' Wu Ting drafts: (1) 与其说这项政策失败了，不如说它从来没有被给过成功的机会。 (2) 当报告承认这些收益时，它警告这些收益可能证明是脆弱的。 She is unsure how to handle 'not so much … as …', suspects 被给过 sounds un-Chinese, and has been taught that 'while' means 当……的时候.

556 words, about 3 min 5

Writing Part B: overview before numbers, hedge before cause

Part B presents a chart for a city of 2.4 million people, 2018–2023. E-bike sales (thousand units): 12, 19, 34, 58, 74, 85.

633 words, about 3 min