In the Notice on Printing and Distributing College English Teaching Syllabuses for Science and Engineering Undergraduates and Liberal Arts Undergraduates, the State Education Commission pointed out that two years after the implementation of the Syllabus, students who have completed CET-4 and CET-6 will be given a unified standardized test. The CET-4 is designed according to this regulation. The purpose of the examination is to comprehensively evaluate whether the students who have completed CET-4 have reached the objectives stipulated in the syllabus. This kind of test belongs to norm reference test related to criteria.

The syllabus points out that the purpose of college English teaching is to cultivate students' strong reading ability, certain listening ability (the syllabus for science and engineering also stipulates certain translation ability) and preliminary writing and speaking ability, so that students can use English as a tool to obtain the information they need for their majors and lay a good foundation for further improving their English level. To this end, this exam mainly examines students' language use ability, and also examines students' mastery of grammatical structure and word usage.