On the Necessity for Linking Scores of NCT

Abstract

There is no doubt that the National Center Test (NCT) is playing an indispensable role in the freshman admission process of universities in Japan. However, a major controversial issue has been overlooked in the usage of the subject scores, and this is undermining the basic structure of the examination system. Raw scores are provided and used under NCTs so-called “a la carte” administration system, even though the equivalency of these scores is not technically guaranteed. This problem was caused by a critical change in the fundamental examination design being overlooked when the current NCT system took the place of the Joint-First Stage Achievement Test. This situation seems to be getting worse year by year. The present study reveals ambiguities in the meaning of raw scores by showing the fluctuation in the distribution of subject scores by using percentile ranks for each year. Moreover, our results show the limitation of the coverage of a single subject test by considering the number of perfect scores. There is an urgent need for cooperation among universities and NCUEE for developing a methodology of linking scores for multiple subjects in order to restore fairness to the scoring process.