修订后的普通高中英语课程标准强调要培养学生的学科素养。作为课程评价环节之一的普通高考也应注重对学科素养的考查。历时梳理恢复高考40年来高考英语阅读部分的考查内容发现，现行高考英语阅读考查尚存局限，体现学科素养任重道远。在借鉴PISA、PIRLS和NAEP等国际素养评价项目的实践经验的基础上，结合英语课程标准的要求，从考查目标的完善、文本体裁的多样化、文本形式的丰富化和考查方式的科学化等方面提出建议，以引起学界对高考学科内容改革的重视。

The revised edition of National English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School attaches great importance to the development of students’ key competences. As one of the key assessment tools for students’ scholastic achievement in high school, the National Matriculation Test, or the Chinese Gaokao, should also focus on the examination of students’ key competences in different subjects. A 40-year diachronic research of the development of the Reading Comprehension questions in National Matriculation English Test (NMET) papers finds that more efforts are needed to achieve this objective. Based on a study of the assessment frameworks and practices of the well-established projects in assessing reading literacy, which include PISA, PIRLS and NAEP, this paper proposes that more emphasis should be put on the content reform of NMET papers and that the following four aspects should be the foci: to validly define the testing construct of reading literacy, to diversify text genres, to enrich text formats and to scientifically design task format. Only in this way can the curriculum reform go deeper and come to fruition.