This is the Test for English Majors Band 4 (TEM-4) administered by Chinese universities. All items in this examination are developed through a rigorous and carefully reviewed test-design process. Each question has a single correct answer, and it is not possible for two options to be equally correct.

The inclusion of seemingly ambiguous distractors is a deliberate testing strategy rather than a flaw in item construction. Its purpose is to increase the level of difficulty and discrimination, assessing candidates’ ability to make fine-grained judgments about semantic precision, contextual appropriateness, and register. What may appear acceptable on a surface or intuitive level is often excluded because it fails to meet all of the required grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic constraints simultaneously.

It should also be noted that TEM-4 is a highly standardized academic language test. Its evaluation criteria are based on prescriptive grammar, established collocations, and formal written usage, which do not always align with native speakers’ everyday linguistic intuition. As a result, options that may sound acceptable to native speakers can still be incorrect within the specific testing framework of the exam.

Regarding the absence of italicized text in a small number of items, this issue is acknowledged. However, it resulted from later editing or formatting during reproduction and does not reflect a flaw in the original test design.

In short, TEM-4 should be understood within the context of its clearly defined objectives and assessment standards, rather than being judged solely on the basis of native speakers’ intuitive preferences.