Cai Jigang, deputy director of the Foreign Language Research Institute of Fudan University in Shanghai, said on 15 January that a college student should have a vocabulary of 8,000 to 10,000 English words, and be able to read at least 200 words per minute to function in their academic or vocational lives after graduation. "However, most college students now must master only about 4,500 words and read 70 to 100 words a minute in the College English Test Band 4." It is a national English test that evaluates college students’ English proficiency. "It means that the English ability of those students is hovering at quite a low level," he said. Cai made the comments at a round-table discussion in Beijing organised by the Test of English for International Communication program under the Educational Testing Service. The round table exchanged opinions among college professors, students and English-test organisers on topics such as English education in college and students' language proficiency. Cai's remarks were in response to the Beijing Municipal Education Commission’s draft reform plan for English tests in the college entrance exams for 2014. The plan, released late last year, would reduce the required English score from 150 to 100, and the vocabulary from 3,500 words to 3,080. The required vocabulary will decline further in the 2015 exams. Reports China Daily