HỌ VÀ TÊN: PHẠM NHƯ CƯỜNG – K44 C sư phạm Tiếng Anh

MSSV: 185d1402310022

Test Development

Exercise 1: Please read the following statement of the problem and answer the
questions
1) What kind of test is it to be?
 An achievement test
2) What is its precise purpose?
 Achievement test to be administered at the end of a pre-sessional course of
training in the reading of academic texts in the social sciences and business
studies.
3) What abilities are to be tested?
 Academic texts in the social sciences and business studies
4) How detailed must the results be?
 The detailed results must be not call for individuals’ diagnostic information,
but for groups with the aim to adjust and improve for future course.
5) How accurate must the results be?
 The result must show progress is being made during the three-month course.
The test must therefore be sufficiently sensitive to measure gain over that
relatively short period.
6) How important is backwash?
 Backwash is considered important because it reflects the effect of testing on
both teaching and learning
7) What constraints are set by unavailability of expertise, facilities, time (for test
construction, administration and scoring)?
 This is one of a battery of tests. In addition, it will be impossible at the
outset to write separate tests for different subject areas.
Statement of the problem

There is a need for an achievement test to be administered at the end of a pre-

sessional course of training in the reading of academic texts in the social sciences
and business studies (the students are graduates who are about to follow
postgraduate courses in English medium universities). The teaching institution
concerned (as well as the sponsors of the students) want to know just what progress
is being made during the three-month course. The test must therefore be sufficiently

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sensitive to measure gain over that relatively short period. While there is no call for
diagnostic information on individuals, it would be useful to know, for groups, where
the greatest difficulties remain at the end of the course, so that future courses may
give more attention to these areas. Backwash is considered important; the test
should encourage the practice of the reading skills that the students will need in their
university studies. This is, in fact, intended to be only one of a battery of tests, and a
maximum of two hours can be allowed for it. It will not be possible at the outset to
write separate tests for different subject areas.

Exercise 2: Please read the sample test specifications on page 3 and complete the
following table by identifying their referents or meaning – what they refer to or
mean
Specification Referent/meaning

Operations - Operations depend on the objective or aim of the course

- It may include: expeditious reading (find out the key
point/ main point or specific information); careful
reading,…

Types of text - There are different types of text: it may be authentic

text ( real materials including real world resources for
teaching purposes, real things were not design for
teaching purposes and they were carefully prepared for
language teaching) , academic text ( specialize text
written by professions , experts using formal language)

Addresses of - Academic for different levels

texts
Length of text(s) - It depends on expeditious or careful reading

Topics - May be familiar with students’ knowledge, including

science, business, history, destination.

Readibility - Indefinite as it bases on various factors

Structural range - unlimited

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Vocabulary - unlimited
range
Dialect, accent, - American or British dialect and accent; formal and
style academic style.
Speed of - Expeditious reading requires students/ test-takers much
processing more than careful, slow reading.
Test structure - Sections in the test, number of items in each section, the
types/ kinds of question, number of items in each kind.

Items - In total and in the various sections

Medium/channe - It may consist of pen/ pencil, tape, computer, face-to-

l face, telephone,….

Timing - Set time for each section or for the entire test
Techniques - Techniques will be used to measure skills or sub-skills
Criterial levels - Criterial levels of performance is various. It shows the
of performance ability or mastery of test takers
Scoring - Scorers have to participate in training course to evaluate
procedures and give score fairly in terms of different criterion such
as lexical resources (grammar, vocabulary), coherence
and cohesion, task achievement ( IELTS writing).
Specifications
1. Content
Operations These are based on the stated objectives of the course, and include
expeditious and slower, careful reading.
 Expeditious reading: skim for main ideas; search read for information;
scan to find specific items in lists, indexes, etc.
 Slower, careful reading: Construe the meaning of complex, closely
argued passages
Underlying skills that are give particular attention in the course:
 Guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words from context;
 Identifying referents of pronouns etc., often some distance
removed in the text.

Types of text: The text should be authentic, academic (taken from textbooks and
journal articles).
Addresses: Academics at postgraduate level and beyond.

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Lengths of texts: Expeditious: c. 3000 words; Careful: c. 800 words.
Topics: The subject areas will have to be as ‘neutral’ as possible, since the students
are from a variety of social science and business disciplines (economics, sociology,
management, etc.)
Readibility: Not specified
Structural range: Unlimited
Vocabulary range: general academic, not specialist technical
Dialect and Style: Standard American or British English dialect, formal, academic
style
Speed of processing: Expeditious: 300 words per minute (not reading all words)
Careful: 100 words per minute

2. Structure, timing, medium and techniques

Test structure: Two sections: expeditious reading; careful reading
Number of items: 30 for expeditious reading and 20 for careful reading. Total: 50
items
Number of passages: 3 for expeditious reading and 20 for careful reading
Timing:
 Expeditious: 15 minutes per passage (each passage collected after 15
minutes)
 Careful: 30 minutes (passage only handed out after 45 minutes, when
expeditious reading has been completed.)
TOTAL: 75 minutes
Medium: paper and pencil. Each passage in a separate booklet.
Techniques: Short answer and gap filling for both sections.
Examples:
For inferring meaning from context:
For each of the folloiwing, find a single word in the text with an equivalent
meaning. Note: the word in the text may an ending such as –ing, -s, etc.
Hingest point (lines 20-35)
For identifying referents:
What does each of the following refer to in the text? Be very precise
The former (line 43)
3. Criterial levels of performance
 Satisfactory performance is represented by 80% accuracy in each of the two
sections.

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  The number of students reaching this level will be the number who have
succeeded in terms of the course’s objectives.
4. Scoring procedures
There will be independent double scoring. Scorers will be trained to ignore
irrelevant (for example grammatical) inaccurary responses.