You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Niu Honglin, joined by Steve and Yishan.
If college English tests were a video game, the CET4 might be entry-level and the CET6 hero mode.
Some players pass once and move on.
Others keep replaying, hoping for a higher score to unlock better hoot like job offers, scholarships.
So what do you think about keep taking the same test?
Is it genuine passion for improvement or just a academic FOMO?
And you say thank you to your AI.
Somewhere in a humming data center half a world away, a few thousand servers light up to send back.
You're welcome, happy to help.
It's polite.
It's sweet.
It's also, according to scientists, surprisingly wasteful.
To thank or not to thank AI.
That is the question.
But now.
The CET4 and CET6 exams have long been part of China's higher education DNA, designed to measure English proficiency, but now often acting as a social filter for job markets and academic advancement.
Today, as universities begin to limit retakes and emphasize comprehensive English education, we're at an interesting crossroads.
Should universities curb repetitive score chasing or does the freedom to improve reflect healthy ambition?
More deeply, What does our collective fixation on standardized tests tell us about how society measures talent and effort?
First things first.
For those who are not familiar with the CET exam, let's give it a brief introduction.
What is it?
Sure.
It is the College English Test Program.
Band 4 and Band 6, as in CET4 or CET6, And they are national unified examinations organized by the Ministry of Education here in China.
And it's particularly targeted at current full-time university students.
So that includes two parts, written tests and oral tests.
We didn't used to have oral tests, by the way.
When I was taking the test.
It was only written at that time?
Only written test and listening part.
By the time I was in uni.
Of course, I didn't take CET test in general because I was majored in English.
And for us, the test that all of the English major students need to take were TEM test.
And TEM8, zhuan si zhuan ba, which is more of a specific higher-leveled English test for English major students.
But here we're talking about CT4 and 6, which is only for students outside of English major as a basic English test requirements for them.
In in many cases, you have to pass this test yes, to graduate from university.
That's the thing, because in universities we know here in china, there are so many different um majors, so many different subjects, and you can also choose part of the subject, which is why, and also different universities have different standards in giving scores and scoring students in.
Different Professors have different standards when they score students, which means for further education or for the job market.
They can definitely see your overall score.
We call it G point somehow.
Grade point average.
Yes, grade point average.
But again, different universities might score their students differently.
For this test, though?
No, no, no.
I'm talking about all different types of subjects and major.
And yet for English test, different universities would have different courses and different way to teach.
But there is this standard test For all university students across China that take the same test.
They are scoring in, hopefully exactly the same standard, which makes it acceptable as a standard for all those who are evaluating the students.
And the CET4 is the easier version?
Yes.
Okay, so the students, depending on their level, would take the 6 or the 4.
They have to take the 6 before they take the 4.
It's like, for example, you enter second year of college or university and you take the 4.
And then by the third year, you take the sixth.
And to answer your previous question, it depends on different universities.
Some universities would allow students to get their academic certificate after they pass their CET4 test.
By saying pass, it's also a bit vague because there's no passing line.
You just get a score.
You just get a score.
So in general, 425 shows that you passed the CET4.
But for some universities, for example, I think...
10 years ago or 15 years ago, my university would allow students to get a graduation certificate if they pass 320 something.
That's not bad.
That's not bad at all.
But again, different universities might have different requirements. standards.
Okay, now that's with universities.
Yet for the job market.
We talked about the fact that this one is perhaps the only national level or national standardized kind of English test for students.
So, and also when you submit your CV or whatever to the job interviewee or job interviewer, they will would be able to see your score.
And that leads to, hmm, I want a higher score.
Yeah, and that's the issue here, right?
That's the news is that the goal, I guess, for the students is to get the highest score possible.
And in the past They were allowed to take the test as many times as they want, and a lot of students would do.
There's a term for that.
I forget the term for that.
Shoffer, as in score brushing or score refreshing.
Right, right, right.
So you want to kind of top up a little bit.
If you took the test the first time and you scored 300-something, you think oh, but for my future, for getting a job, I'd rather get 400-plus.
Then students would want to take it again.
But now that's going to be more difficult.
Yeah, the news has it that several universities here in Beijing they introduced regulations to restrict repeated retakes aimed at boosting or highering your score after multiple trying.
You know, this year's CET band four and band six exams here in Beijing has already concluded.
So we're kind of looking forward to see how that turns out for these students who just took the exam and how happy they are with their score, since now they have limited opportunities for taking the exam to suffer.
Yeah, but it's not only here in China, right?
People around the world, students around the world.
They retake tests.
They retake their SAT tests, their TOEFL tests, British IELTS, you name it.
Yeah, they do that, right?
They do do that, and yeah TOEIC, for example, would be an example of a test that you could take again and again.
But I don't know if that's an apples-to-apples comparison.
Because that's a test that you take outside on your own time.
That's not related to your university program at all.
This is directly related to your university program.
So to compare those two might not be a fair thing to do.
But will it add credit to your CV if you have a relatively good score after taking those?
Well, yeah, of course it would.
And a lot of people do that.
It can be expensive, so you take that into account.
But a lot of people do that.
But here we're talking about students taking the test again when it's related to their university classes.
And one of the issues and one of the reasons that they want to restrict students, students taking it again and again and again, is because of the availability.
These tests are done at particular venues, right?
And there are a certain number of seats within these venues.
So if you have students who have already quote unquote air quotes passed the test and they want to take it again, they're taking up a seat for someone who potentially hasn't even taken the test yet.
And on the Chinese job market.
There's not only CET exam that can prove your English skills, despite the fact that you're not from an English major.
There are other tests, such as CATI, which is more focusing on the translation side of your English skill, but with that, with that exam.
By the way, it's also open for all, all major students.
Whoever are interested in proving themselves English skill on the CV can take it.
Yeah, this isn't the only thing that you can do to prove yourself.
By mentioning that, I'm trying to say that back then, when I was trying to attend it, I used to just, you know, queuing and chatting with people in front of me and behind me, and none of them are from English major.
They're just trying to make their CV look with the bonus, additional bonus of the fact that they can also do translation or fluent in English communication.
That leads to my next question.
Do you think students?
Because I believe there's no problem with trying to improve, trying to show that now I am better than myself half a year ago.
But my question is, as already working in the well a really good job, for example, Yushan what do you think students should do?
Should they continue to put in their effort, their time and energy in trying to sharpen in this one particular exam.
Or should they try to find some other strengths that they can work on, some other area, other aspects that they can work on to improve themselves?
Let's say, first of all, knowing how to take an exam doesn't usually equal a good mastery of the exam examined skill here.
Because preparing for an exam, let's just be honest, it's so exhausting.
You have to review for it.
You have to recite a lot of things and take repetitive practices over your weak points.
For example, I remember students used to take multiple, multiple hours per day practicing on their writing or speaking, because that's more of an improvising side of the exam that you can't rely on your own brain, as in.
You have to be creative enough and accumulate enough knowledge for it.
But let's just be frank about why you're just exhausting yourself for overly preparing for one exam if it's not something that you're going to use or that you see value in in the long run.
I would suggest younger people, especially college students.
Before you start to refresh your score or think about it, let's just try to make your CV look kind of better planned or better planned as a start.
Like how or which level of standard do you aim, or which groups of categories of jobs are you trying to look for that would need in need of such, And then, with that purpose set, let's go back and see if it's necessary for you to shopper in the first place.
Yeah.
I mean, you look at employers for that.
How much importance do they place on this CET4 or 6 coming out of university?
And is that the only thing?
In an interview.
I can imagine if English were a part of the job.
There would be a section of the interview at least that would be conducted in English.
So someone, even with a lesser CET score, maybe they had a bad day that day on test day, Maybe they can converse very comfortably.
And in that case then you kind of look at the test score and go, oh okay well, I guess you did have a bad day.
But then if we want to accomplish that, then the students need to know that.
But if the students are under the impression that this is a make or break exam for me And here's another reason they want to restrict taking the test again is that the students might then say OK, I'm going to ignore my regular coursework because I'm going to focus on studying for this very difficult English exam, because it's more important for my future than this other class that I'm taking right now.
That's a concern.
And I think it's a legitimate concern too.
And that is why the society, as well as the job market, should work on finding better ways to find the talent you need and to view certain tests in a different light, perhaps because in the real world we know, at the end of the day, it's how you solve problems, it's how you work together with people, with your colleagues, and it's how you bring real benefit and real profit to your company.
I remember when I was teaching university, one of my students was preparing for the TOEIC test and he asked me one day Steve, what was your TOEIC score?
I said, what?
I never took it.
But I don't think I would get a perfect score.
I told him that.
I don't think I'd get a perfect score because that test is super difficult.
And these types of tests are designed to be very, very difficult too.
True.
So remember that when you take your CET test next time, perhaps.
We'll be back after the short break.
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You type thank you to your AI and move on.
Polite, harmless, done, right?
Well, not exactly.
Behind the screens.
That little phrase sets a lot of digital gears in motion.
Multiply it by millions of users and suddenly a tiny courtesy starts leaving a noticeable footprint.
With that, do you say thanks to your AI?
Do you say thanks to your AI, Yushan?
Yes, I do.
I treat all of the chatbots I'm talking to as 3PO.
From Star Wars.
I treat them as someone who is giving me feedback.
And here's the trick.
If I... I just noticed it from multiple tryouts.
If I put in the polite entries like please or thank you more often, then their response tend to be nicer fuller, richer in the tone as well.
And you are not alone.
They did a study from the UK.
60 of UK and US users say please and thank you when interacting with chat, GPT and other AI platforms.
I do that too.
But apparently doing it is not necessarily all the good with no disadvantage, because we see that the reason that we're talking about this today is that when you say thank you, they need to respond.
They do.
And they say, you're welcome, right?
Which is the response that you would hear from a human as well.
But when you hear this headline, oh, thank AI or not thank AI, you think the story's about manners.
It's not.
It's about tokens.
It's about electricity and... Yeah.
And Sam Altman, who is the CEO of OpenAI, he said there's a huge cost of this AI politeness.
So...
More tokens means more computation.
More computation means more electricity.
And more electricity means more carbon emissions.
Now, if you're thinking, what's the big deal?
I say thank you.
ChatGPT or whatever AI platform you're using says you're welcome.
Well, you're one person in the world.
So on ChatGPT, for example, with 123 million daily users, one thank you each day adds up to about 135 million kilowatts per hour per year, roughly the yearly consumption of 7000 households worth of energy.
And not to mention the water usage in the process as well.
Researchers at UC Riverside estimate that one AI you are welcome could use about 44 milliliters of water for cooling down the machine.
And at global scale that's 6570 tons of water per year and that's enough for 200 adults'.
Annual use of water.
But that being said, we say thank you for a reason, right?
Like Yusheng said, when she says thank you or please, AI responds better.
And also because I'm a nice person.
Of course.
And at the same time, when we talk to AI, we are also helping training the big model.
You're teaching it.
And if the AI has the ability to remember your conversations and if you're using it on a daily basis then yeah, this is the upside of saying things like thank you or great job.
Because if you're using the AI for specific tasks, where you're looking for specific feedback from the AI model, asking it to find specific things or accomplish specific tasks for you, and it doesn't do it properly, then you say no, that's not what I'm looking for and it tries again.
But when it finally does and you say yes, thank you, this is what I'm looking for, then the model knows okay, future searches will now go in this direction.
So you know we're using thank you as the example.
Providing positive feedback to the model is absolutely beneficial as well.
On top of that, it's also a bit of human touch, because we have seen users comparing different types of large language models and by saying comparing, they use examples of people talking about they don't like their lives, they don't know what to do, they have suicidal attempts and certain good.
By saying good i mean certain models.
That response instead of saying, instead of directly responding to the question, they also respond to the attitude.
They talk about how you can find positive things in life, how you can improve your feelings and situations, and they even respond with a number of suicidal, suicidal hotline, so that without being asked, being consulted.
And that is because, during the training of that specific large language model, they were given the focus not only to problem solving but giving the human touch.
Yeah, I think that really matters nowadays.
And folks, if you've been sticking with our channel for a while, you might have listened to the the promo, one of our promo, voiced by our lovely Hong Lin and our old friend Lai Ming asking you do know that you don't need to say thank you to AI all the time and Hong Lin respond, but that's how I would talk to my kids.
So imagine this in five, 10 years time, our next generation grow up to the age of interacting with AI, let's say, multiple times a day, And what kind of response would you hope for AI to give to the children for the future generations?
Hold on.
It's a computer.
Okay, let's remember that, right?
Because this responds in a human kind of way.
And they did a survey.
They asked people why are you polite to ai when you talk to it?
And the number one answer was because it's the nice thing to do.
You just said it.
You shun yourself because i'm a nice person.
It's a machine.
It's a machine.
It doesn't necessarily need you to.
It's not your aunt.
But don't you think the way you respond to AI can somehow change the way you act on the internet?
I think it can because, for example, I don't think I am writing the way I wrote one year or two years ago because I've been interacting with AI.
It's the same thing.
When you are facing a screen, you have to actively, always remind yourself I'm talking to an AI or I'm talking to a real person.
Well, hold on.
You have to actively remind yourself.
Don't you?
No.
I can tell the difference.
The tone and the way you speak and everything.
I'm pretty sure two different actions would affect each other.
I don't interact with AI enough for it to have an impact on how I deal with other people, but I can see how that could happen.
And in that case, we have both sides.
We sometimes think it's important to be nice to AI so that it can learn what is nice as a human, but also it's wasteful.
So is there anything we can do?
We want to say thank you, but we find saying thank you energy consuming.
Yeah.
If you're saying thank you for the purpose of being polite, maybe skip that.
If you're saying thank you for reinforcement to the model to help it achieve better results in the future, maybe keep that.
Or just keep your request concise in a clear way, that's enough.
And to the coders out there please please, continue to streamline your codes, making sure that Maybe in the future, replying a simple you're welcome would not consume that much electricity and water, and that'll do it.
And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'm Nia Honglin with Steve and Yushan.
Bye for now.
