I will now go on to look at testing and elicitation and in particular some different

question types and their functions, advantages and disadvantages.

Types of test

Types of task

Multiple choice

Transformation

Gap-filling

Matching

Cloze

True / False

Open questions

Error correction

Other techniques

Types of test
Before writing a test it is vital to think about what it is you want to test and what its
purpose is. We must make a distinction here between proficiency tests, achievement
tests, diagnostic tests and prognostic tests.

A proficiency test is one that measures a candidate's overall ability in a

language, it isn't related to a specific course.

An achievement test on the other hand tests the students' knowledge of the
material that has been taught on a course.

A diagnostic test highlights the strong and weak points that a learner may have
in a particular area.

A prognostic test attempts to predict how a student will perform on a course.

There are of course many other types of tests. It is important to choose elicitation
techniques carefully when you prepare one of the aforementioned tests.
Types of task
There are many elicitation techniques that can be used when writing a test. Below are
some widely used types with some guidance on their strengths and weaknesses. Using
the right kind of question at the right time can
be enormously important in giving us a clear understanding of our students' abilities,
but we must also be aware of the limitations of each of these task or question types so
that we use each one appropriately.
Multiple choice
Choose the correct word to complete the sentence.
Cook is ________________today for being one of Britain's most famous
explorers.
a) recommended b) reminded c) recognised d) remembered
In this question type there is a stem and various options to choose from. The
advantages of this question type are that it is easy to mark and minimises guess work
by having multiple distracters. The disadvantage is that it
can be very time-consuming to create, effective multiple choice items are surprisingly
difficult to write. Also it takes time for the candidate to process the information which
leads to problems with the validity of the exam. If a low level candidate has to read
through lots of complicated information before they can answer the question, you may
find you are testing their reading skills more than their lexical knowledge.

Multiple choice can be used to test most things such as grammar, vocabulary,
reading, listening etc. but you must remember that it is still possible for students to just
'guess' without knowing the correct answer.

Transformation
Complete the second sentence so that it has the same meaning as the first.
'Do you know what the time is, John?' asked Dave.
Dave asked John __________ (what) _______________ it was.
This time a candidate has to rewrite a sentence based on an instruction or a key word
given. This type of task is fairly easy to mark, but the problem is that it doesn't test
understanding. A candidate may simply be able to rewrite sentences to a formula. The
fact that a candidate has to paraphrase the whole meaning of the sentence in the
example above however minimises this drawback.

Transformations are particularly effective for testing grammar and understanding

of form. This wouldn't be an appropriate question type if you wanted to test skills such
as reading or listening.

Gap-filling
Complete the sentence.
Check the exchange ______________ to see how much your money is worth.
The candidate fills the gap to complete the sentence. A hint may sometimes be included
such as a root verb that needs to be changed, or the first letter of the word etc. This
usually tests grammar or vocabulary. Again
this type of task is easy to mark and relatively easy to write. The teacher must bear in
mind though that in some cases there may be many possible correct answers.

Gap-fills can be used to test a variety of areas such as vocabulary, grammar and
are very effective at testing listening for specific words.
Matching
fat
young
dangerous
short

old
tall
thin
safe

Match the word on the left to the word with the opposite meaning.

With this question type, the candidate must link items from the first column to items in
the second. This could be individual words, words and definitions, parts of sentences,
pictures to words etc. Whilst it is easy to mark, candidates can get the right answers
without knowing the words, if she has most of the answers correct she knows the last
one left must be right. To avoid this, have more words than is necessary.

Matching exercises are most often used to test vocabulary.

Cloze
Complete the text by adding a word to each gap.
This is the kind _____ test where a word _____ omitted from a passage every
so often. The candidate must _____ the gaps, usually the first two lines are

without gaps.
This kind of task type is much more integrative as candidates have to process the
components of the language simultaneously. It has also been proved to be a good
indicator of overall language proficiency. The teacher must be careful about multiple
correct answers and students may need some practice of this type of task.

Cloze tests can be very effective for testing grammar, vocabulary and intensive
reading.

True / False
Decide if the statement is true or false.
England won the world cup in 1966. T/F
Here the candidate must decide if a statement is true or false. Again this type is easy to
mark but guessing can result in many correct answers. The best way to counteract this
effect is to have a lot of items.

This question type is mostly used to test listening and reading comprehension.

Open questions
Answer the questions.
Why did John steal the money?
Here the candidate must answer simple questions after a reading or listening or as part
of an oral interview. It can be used to test anything. If the answer is open-ended it will
be more difficult and time consuming to mark and there may also be a an element of
subjectivity involved in judging how 'complete' the answer is, but it may also be a more
accurate test.

These question types are very useful for testing any of the four skills, but less
useful for testing grammar or vocabulary.

Error Correction
Find the mistakes in the sentence and correct them.
Ipswich Town was the more better team on the night.
Errors must be found and corrected in a sentence or passage. It could be an extra
word, mistakes with verb forms, words missed etc. One problem with this question type
is that some errors can be corrected in more than one way.

Error correction is useful for testing grammar and vocabulary as well as readings
and listening.

Other Techniques
There are of course many other elicitation techniques such as translation, essays,
dictations, ordering words/phrases into a sequence and sentence construction
(He/go/school/yesterday).
It is important to ask yourself what exactly you are trying to test, which techniques suit
this purpose best and to bear in mind the drawbacks of each technique. Awareness of
this will help you to minimise the problems and produce a more effective test.

If you think taking tests is difficult then you should try writing them! Writing
a good test is indeed quite a challenge and one that takes patience,
experience and a degree of trial and error.

There are many steps you can take to ensure that your test is more effective and that
test writing becomes a learning experience.

The elements of a good test

Validity of a test

Reliability of a test

The affect of tests

Other features of a good test

Assessing difficulty

Conclusion

The elements of a good test

A good test will give us a more reliable indication of our students' skills and it ensures
that they don't suffer unfairly because of a poor question. How can we be sure that we
have produced a good test?

One way is very simply to think about how we feel about it afterwards. Do the
results reflect what we had previously thought about the skills of the students? Another
simple way is to ask the students for some feedback. They will soon tell you if they felt
a question was unfair or if a task type was unfamiliar.

Validity of a test
A good test also needs to be valid. It must test what it is meant to test. A listening test
that has very complicated questions afterwards can be as much of a test of reading as
listening. Also a test that relies on cultural knowledge cannot measure a student's
ability to read and comprehend a passage.
Reliability of a test
A test should also be reliable. This means that it should produce consistent results at
different times. If the test conditions stay the same, different groups of students at a
particular level of ability should get the same result each time.

A writing test may not be reliable as the marking may be inconsistent and
extremely subjective, especially if there are a number of different markers. Thus to try
and ensure the test is more reliable it is essential to have clear descriptors of what
constitutes each grade.

In an oral interview it is important to ensure that the examiner maintains the

same attitude with all the candidates. The test will be less reliable if he is friendly with

some candidates but stern with others. You should try to ensure that the test conditions
are as consistent as possible.

The affect of tests

We must also bear in mind the affect of our tests. Has the test caused too much anxiety
in the students? Are the students familiar with the test types in the exam?

If a student has never seen a cloze passage before she may not be able to write
a test that reflects her true ability. The solution to this is to try and reduce the negative
effects by using familiar test types and making the test as non-threatening as possible.

Other features of a good test

Other features of a good test are that there is a variety of test types and that it is as
interesting as possible.

A variety of test types will ensure that the students have to stay focused and
minimise the tiredness and boredom you can feel during a repetitive test.

Finding reading passages that are actually interesting to read can also help to
maintain motivation during a test. A test should also be as objective as possible,
providing a marking key and descriptors can help with this.

Assessing difficulty
Another important feature of a good test is that it is set at an appropriate level. You can
only really find this out by giving the test and studying the results. Basically if everyone
gets above 90% you know it is too easy or if everyone gets less than 10% it is
obviously too difficult. For tests that aren't so extreme you will need to do some
analysis of your test. You can do this by analysing the individual items for difficulty.

In order to do this mark all of the tests and divide them into three equal groups,
high, middle and low.

Make a note for each item of how many candidates got the answer correct from
the high and the low group (leave aside the middle group). To find the level of difficulty
you need to do a quick calculation.

Take one question and add the number of students from the high group
who have the correct answer to the number from the low group

Then divide this by the total number of people from both groups (high and
low). It is thought that if over 90% of candidates get the answer right it is too easy. If
fewer than 30% get it right it is too difficult.

Also bear in mind that if most of the answers are in the 30's and 40's it would be
best to rewrite the test. It's the same if most of the answers are in the 80's and 90's.

The final step is to reject the items that are too easy or difficult.

Conclusion
Always bear in mind though that the difficulty of an item may relate to whether it has
been covered in class or it may give an indication of how well it was understood. Such
test analysis can give us information about how effective our teaching has been as well
as actually evaluating the test. Evaluating tests carefully can ensure that the test
improves after it is taken and can give us feedback on improving our test writing.
Below is a suggested procedure for writing a test.

Decide what kind of test it is going to be (achievement, proficiency)

Write a list of what the test is going to cover

Think about the length, layout and the format

Find appropriate texts

Weight the sections according to importance/time spent etc.

Write the questions

Write the instructions and examples

Decide on the marks

Make a key

Write a marking scheme for less objective questions

Pilot the test

Review and revise the test and key

After the test has been taken, analyse the results and decide what can be kept /
rejected.