Abstract: A word problem test was administered to 123 students from the second to fourth grade by experiment method and clinical interview method,in order to explore the difference of representation strategy between superior students and inferior students when they solved comparable word problem.The results showed that:(1)According to students'performance on consistent word problems and inconsistent word problems,most of superior students used problem-model strategy to represent word problem and most of inferior students used direct translation strategy to represent word problem;(2)With entering the higher grade,superior students used representation strategy more stably.As far as inferior students were concerned,more effective problem-model strategy didn't take the place of direct translation strategy,though the cognition about strategy utilization was increasing;(3)The difference of gender was insignificant,except that the accuracy of inferior female students was less than that of inferior male ones and that inferior female students reported to use direct translation strategy more than inferior male ones.

Key words: elementary student, arithmetic word problem, representation strategy