Abstract:

Based upon the survey of 69 subjects from eight general universities in China who have similar language competence in TEM4 but get different marks in TEM8，this paper investigates to what degree attribution preference and learning strategy affect the mark gained in TEM8. The results reveal that: learning motivation and interest of students with poor marks is as strong as that of students with high marks. However，the attribution preference between the two groups diverges: the negative attribution of the poormark group is due to unstable internal factors，uncontrollable external factors，and little attention to the basic knowledge of language as well. Meanwhile，the frequency of employing different learning strategies in the poor-mark group is lower than that in the highmark
group. Besides，the two groups differ from each other considerably in terms of cognitive competence. Finally，the results of the research enlighten us to concern about the backwash effect of TEM8 on daily teaching.

Key words: TEM8, attribution, learning strategy, backwash effect