In the late 1980s, because the single college entrance examination was biased towards the "dual-task" high school education, the phenomenon of one-sided pursuit of enrollment rate in high school teaching became more and more serious, and the enrollment rate of college entrance examination became the only basis for evaluating schools, teachers and students, and high school graduates who failed the college entrance examination were regarded as "losers".
In order to curb this unhealthy phenomenon, the Ministry of Education (formerly the State Education Commission) decided to reform the examination system, establish a high school graduation examination system, and separate the ability examination from the selection examination.
Therefore, the CET-4 and CET-6, as the main means to judge whether the English ability of Chinese college students meets the teaching requirements, must also be reformed accordingly to adapt to the new situation and make the examination better serve the implementation of the teaching requirements.