From their sales website, I can see a 1000 word list book (with MP3!) for the basic capability test, but the rest is GEPT stuff. I would start by getting taht one and comparing/analizing it in relation to the list posted here initially.
sh1.yahoo.edyna.com/joy/item_cat … a_id=12779
Disclaimer: I have not seen this book, and I have no relationship with Joy enterprises.
Icon, thanks once again.
I see that Joy has several different series of books. Which do you think they’ll use?
Or do you think they’ll just use the 1,000-word and 2,000-word books?
[quote=“Charlie Jack”]Icon, thanks once again.
I see that Joy has several different series of books. Which do you think they’ll use?
Or do you think they’ll just use the 1,000-word and 2,000-word books?[/quote]It says there that the 1000 word list book is specifically for the basic capability test. Now, this is supplementary material, they cannot just use that and disregard the textbook.
Which leads to my next question: where are the Joy textbooks? Are they sold to schools only and hence not in the website? Or are we not on the right track? Because I can see the primary school books there. What about the junior high textbooks? Where are they? CAVES? Zhongxin?
I was told by a staff member yesterday that Caves has nothing by Joy, but the bastard might have been lying. Anyway, I couldn’t find any.
Thanks for the books you listed. I’ve got them printed out, neccesary since there is no English on the cover.
Bob, you only need the 1000 word list book -the first one on that page- NOT the 2000 one (which it says is for the GEPT).
And the textbooks. I’d go with any of the big bookstores in Zhongxin for that -sorry my pinyin sucks, I never learned it.
EDIT:
You can buy Joy’s books at the website or at their own bookstores only. Remember, bushibans are quite protective of their materials.
As to the ethics of picking a bushiban’s book when there are many kids that cannot afford to go to bushiban…, that’s another story.
Hi bob, Icon, and all,
bob, before you read this, I ought to say that it seems to me–and this is just a guess–more likely than not that the upcoming second test is based on something other than the textbooks which the China Post article says were recently chosen. But again, I don’t know.
Icon posted this link to the China Post article about the new books:
chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/loca … tbooks.htm
If you go to the linked page, there’s a picture on the right side of the page. The caption under the picture says the books in the picture are some of the chosen books. If the picture and the caption are accurate, then the book on the far right side of the picture is one of the English books in the chosen series. In big letters and numerals the cover says English 2上 (I guess the equivalent of “English 2A”). I’m going to make a wild guess that under that English 2上, on the left side of the cover, it says “國中英語,” or “Junior High English,” or something like that.
The China Post article says the chosen English book is put out by Joy Publishing, and the social science book is put out by Han Lin Publishing.
A few minutes ago, I put [quote]“佳音出版社”[/quote] (jia1yin1chu1ban3she4, a name I picked up earlier tonight) in quotes in the Google box, and got this Chinese-language news article about the books. (For some mysterious reason, I don’t see that name in the article, even though that’s what pulled it up on Google.) Here’s another article you can get by using that phrase, with what appears to be the same picture as the one in the China Post. I don’t know whether that name is the same as “Joy Publishing,” but 佳音出版社 is one of the names I’ve seen in connection with the English books that were chosen.
If I just put [quote]english “佳音” “國中英語”[/quote] in the Google search box, the first page I get is this one:
goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11070521913459
I’m not saying that’s an earlier edition of the book in the China Post photo. I’m not saying that at all, because I don’t know. Anyway, please note that on the cover of this book, it says 佳音 (jiayin) 翰林 (hanlin). Han Lin is the chosen social science text publisher, according to the article(s). I don’t know, maybe the two companies sometimes work together.
Anyway, the same company or pair of companies seems to have put out junior high English books by other names. Here’s an example: hle.com.tw/bookmark/jhs_en/02/05.htm
But I haven’t been able to find the book in the China Post picture.
Maybe I’m confusing more than I’m helping. The book might not even be out yet, and maybe that’s why I can’t find it on the Internet yet. On the other hand, maybe I simply missed the page that has it. Maybe Icon can tell us something.
Yes, Charlie, I am confused. (Just kidding).
The article you posted from the China Post is the one I had linked to before.
My eyes are too strained to see the letters/names/words in the picture. please note they are there as illustration. (picture and accurate and English newspaper do not go well together in the same phrase).
In the first article you put, 北北基推薦書獨缺 南一將向教部陳情, they mention NanYi, which is another publishing company. So is Hanlin -yet another publisher. Joy is known as a bushiban, but it also publishes its own magazine, I do not know if they collaborated with other companies to make their textbooks, but I know that textbooks are sold in bulk to schools.
As I said before, a lot of companies jumped on the bandwagon of making textbooks, as the market was “opened” in every subject. In English, some local collaborated with foreign ones (Longman, Cambridge). So maybe even Hanlin has its own English textbook, which has nothing to do with being chosen as the favorite in Science. It does have its own Math, Chinese, Social Science, etc… textbooks, as do the rest.
Now that I mention it, the NanYi bookstore in Zhongxin is pretty big and interesting… haven’t been there in a while. have a look, you’ll be surprised -and even more confused!
That same article is a Chinese version of the China Post content -mainly, who were the chosen ones.
Most publishers try to maximize profits. One book is used for the term before Winter Break (the up or 上), the next book after after (the down or 下).
The reason you cannot find the Joy English textbook for junior high is because it is sold directly to schools. It should be available at Joy’s bookstores. (I think).
Anybody got a location for one of these? Thanks.
[quote=“Icon”]Yes, Charlie, I am confused. (Just kidding).
The article you posted from the China Post is the one I had linked to before.
My eyes are too strained to see the letters/names/words in the picture. please note they are there as illustration. (picture and accurate and English newspaper do not go well together in the same phrase).
In the first article you put, 北北基推薦書獨缺 南一將向教部陳情, they mention NanYi, which is another publishing company. So is Hanlin -yet another publisher. Joy is known as a buxiban, but it also publishes its own magazine, I do not know if they collaborated with other companies to make their textbooks, but I know that textbooks are sold in bulk to schools.
As I said before, a lot of companies jumped on the bandwagon of making textbooks, as the market was “opened” in every subject. In English, some local collaborated with foreign ones (Longman, Cambridge). So maybe even Hanlin has its own English textbook, which has nothing to do with being chosen as the favorite in Science. It does have its own Math, Chinese, Social Science, etc… textbooks, as do the rest.
Now that I mention it, the NanYi bookstore in Zhongxin is pretty big and interesting… haven’t been there in a while. have a look, you’ll be surprised -and even more confused!
That same article is a Chinese version of the China Post content -mainly, who were the chosen ones.
Most publishers try to maximize profits. One book is used for the term before Winter Break (the up or 上), the next book after after (the down or 下).
The reason you cannot find the Joy English textbook for junior high is because it is sold directly to schools. It should be available at Joy’s bookstores. (I think).[/quote]
Thanks, Icon.
Here’s another word list. I don’t know if it’s any different from the one linked to earlier in this thread.
Bingo! This is the closest we’ve been, though it is from 2 years ago. I like it because it includes the topics and the educational objectives.
Bob,
I found the address to Joy’s own American school in Xiny:
台北市大安區信義路二段208號5樓
電話 (02)3393-6939
Xinyi Street, section 2, number 208, 5F
The bushibans’ addresses can be found here:
je.joy.com.tw/modules.php?name=B … anch&city=台北市
Thinking in terms of likely time frames, I’m wondering how much the upcoming exam would be based on the recently-chosen Joy materials. Just wondering.
Here are some more pics of junior high English books, some with both the word 佳音 (jia1yin1; “good news,” or something like that, but it’s apparently Joy’s Chinese name) and the word 翰林 (han4lin2; “academic”) appearing on the same book.
Here are some more references to Joy (jia1yin1) books:
hle.com.tw/bookmark/jhs_en/02/03.htm
hle.com.tw/bookmark/jhs_en/05/04.htm
I posted the two links directly above not to show the books but to comment on the website. According to who.is, hle.com.tw is registered to Hanlin Publishing Company, located in Taipei. It appears that Joy and Hanlin have, or have had, some kind of cooperative arrangement for publishing.
[quote=“Icon”]Dear Charlie,
You would then have to assume that all words from the list are used on the test -which is not the case. You could -as Bob said- draw a frequency of usage, but also, since we do not know what changes they will impose next -they like to do 180’s from one year to the other- then caveat empteor.[/quote]
Not only that, it turns out that the pdf documents of the Basic Capability Tests are image documents, not text documents, so making a list out of the words on the tests would be quite a job of work.
I converted the first test page of the 96-02 test (the second test of 2007) to an image file, then downloaded a couple of free optical character reading programs, and didn’t have much luck with them. So I downloaded a third OCR program, scanned the image file from the first page of the 96-02 test and got this on the first try, for test items 1 and 2:
[quote]Look at due Pierre. What is in Me bowl?
The doctor said the woman mi~ne[/quote]
Has a kind of reggae flavor to it. 
After tinkering with the image a little on GIMP (a free graphics editor), that page seems to scan somewhat better, but in any case, I’m not sure I can make better time by scanning than I could by simply typing.
Anyway, I’ve decided to relax and take a bit-by-bit approach to the whole thing.
[quote]What I used to do to help the kids is to draw “clouds”, which are words that are related -within the list- and then add some that are not in the list, but you would probably need for understanding. Like “family”, one topic, take all the words related to it, and add a couple that seem logical but are not there.[/quote] I know almost nothing about the psychology of learning, but this method is bound to be better than the scattershot approach I’ve used in the past. I’ll probably give it a try; I think the thing for me will be to try to figure out how to put it on Moodle courseware.
I know all this thanking is repetitive as heck, but I gotta say again, thanks very much for all your help, Icon.
And thanks to bob, also. I’m pretty sure that by bringing this topic up, you helped me more than I helped you.
Charlie
While not so close to the topic, but not necessarily so distant, this little note from the China Pest:
[quote]
The Ministry of Education (MOE) decided yesterday to take over the electronic processing operations of the second test of basic capability examinations for junior high school graduates.
The decision was made after a day-long damage control meeting, following the detention of Lin Cheng-chieh, owner of Bo Wei Publication based in southern Kaohsiung City, for allegedly selling the personal data of the graduates to over a dozen cram schools.
Lin’s son and his girlfriend Hsu Hui-chu were also detained for involvement in the scam.
…
The officials declined to identify which university has been selected for the job. They stressed that taking over the electronic processing operations from a private company will help eliminate possible scams and boost the confidence of the parents and students in the fairness of the examination.
Bo Wei Publication and its subsidiary, a computer data processing firm, have alternatively won the exclusive contracts for the past eight years despite persistent rumors that the personal data of junior high school graduates were put on the market for a price.
Operators of more than a dozen of the cram schools are still under investigation for purchasing the data from an illegal source
.[/quote]
Thanks a lot for that info, Icon. I missed that in the papers. I don’t quite know what to make of it, but I’m going to be watching the papers to try to learn more.
[quote=“Charlie Jack”] And thanks to bob, also. I’m pretty sure that by bringing this topic up, you helped me more than I helped you.
Charlie[/quote]
That’s entirely likely. I was trying to prepare “one” student for the exam and got fired from that job till after the test. Then I get hired back. Another one of my students is actually one of the teachers who teaches test prep and the rule for the class she teaches is “no speaking English”. It intereferes with preparing for the exam apparently. Her student can’t speak English. One would hope that somewhere along the line somebody, somewhere would have a light bulb moment…
Dear Charlie,
This note illustrates the shady deals that go around the testing system, the pressure, the kind of money involved.
I mean at first sight, you go: who wants teenagers data? Howeve, when these kids are competing for a spot, the bushiban that has their data -grades, class ranking, etc.- can prey on them, knowing their weaknesses.
And of course, there is always the possibility that not only that kind of data was filtered. Tests have been handed directly to bushiban’s in the past.
Of course, “it is all A-pien’s fault”, even though I know people who have been taking tests for other for like 20 years… Bushiban business is serious business, and reinforces the secretiveness around the vocab lists/tests analysis, etc.
Ah, now I see. I was wondering how the information could be used. Thanks for explaining that, Icon.
Thank God! They are finally seeing the light…
From the Taiwan News
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=678979&lang=eng_news&cate_img=49.jpg&cate_rss=news_Society_TAIWAN
