International Journal of Education

This study aims to explore the assessment patterns of higher-order thinking in English reading comprehension test questions of the high school entrance examination and its implications for English teaching. Adopting an analytical method combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, the research systematically examines the distribution characteristics and evolving trends of higher-order thinking assessment items, using the English reading comprehension test questions of the high school entrance examination in Qingdao City, Shandong Province from 2020 to 2024 as the research object. The findings reveal that: (1) The proportion of higher-order thinking assessment items in the English reading comprehension section of the high school entrance examination has shown a significant upward trend, reflecting examiners’ increasing emphasis on cultivating students’ cognitive abilities; (2) Among them, the proportion of analysis and inference questions is the highest, followed by induction and generalization questions, while the proportion of evaluation and creation questions is relatively low. Based on these results, the study proposes the following recommendations: In the English proposition of the high school entrance examination, the structural proportion of the examination questions of higher-order thinking should be further optimized, and the examination weight of evaluation and creative ability should be appropriately increased; Meanwhile, by designing more contextualized and open-ended test questions, the backwash effect of examinations on teaching can be better exerted, thereby effectively promoting the all-round development of students core literacy in the English subject.

High school entrance examination English; Reading comprehension; Test question analysis; Thinking quality; Higher-order thinking