Anxiety is one of the affective factors that have effects on Chinese college students’ English reading comprehension. The study aims to investigate some causes of Chinese college students having English reading anxiety with the help of questionnaires and interview with some subjects, which may help them find out some useful and practical strategies to overcome it. After careful analysis of the subjects’ scores, five causes are found out. They are students’ lack of cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries, lack of confidence in reading English, lack of necessary reading skills, lack of English linguistic knowledge and lack of interest in reading English. Some measures may be taken by teachers to deal with their students’ reading anxiety. They should try to motivate the students to make more efforts and help reduce their reading anxiety in order to increase their learning efficiency in English reading.

Chinese college students, English reading anxiety, questionnaire, reading skills, confidence, interest in reading English