The Ministry of Education is investigating a Web site that posted College English Test (CET) questions before the tests were held.

The questions for CET Band IV and CET Band VI appeared on a popular forum on Web site www. mopsite. com, one day before the tests were held Saturday, the Beijing Daily Messenger reported Tuesday.

It was not clear who posted the questions, but the Web site administrator was keeping the Web page with the questions for further investigation, said the newspaper.

The leakage of CET Four questions has become more frequent in recent years, but it was the first time Band VI questions were leaked.

CETs have long been a headache for college students. Many universities stipulate that students should pass Band IV to get a Bachelor's degree while employers often turn down gradates without a CET certificate, even though English will not be used in their work. Some 6 million people sat the two tests Saturday.

A survey shows that college students are spending a lot of their time studying for the tests. The National Research Center for Foreign Language Education conducted a survey among 4,000 college students not majoring in English, revealing that 19 percent of those polled spent all their private study time on English. Some 56 percent said they spent most of their time studying English, CCTV reported.

A short message sent to CCTV said: "I'm a math major. I don't like English, but I spend 80 percent of my time studying it. Can a math major find a job if his English is not good?"

Many students turn to illegal means, including hiring others to sit the exams, and buying exam questions and answers from people with access to the questions.

The mopsite.com administrator said the Web site deleted more than 2,000 messages on buying and selling CET questions and answers before Saturday's tests.

(Shenzhen Daily January 12, 2005)