TESTING VOCABULARY

As In general, testing is finding out how well something works. In terms of

human beings, testing tells what level of knowledge or skill has been acquired.

A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person’s language. A

vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for

communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one

of the largest challenges in learning a second language.

Base on Merriam Webster, vocabulary test is a test for knowledge ( as of

meaning or use) of a selected list of words that is often used as part of an intelligence

test. And also testing vocabulary is a test to find out students’vocabulary mastery.

Besides this test is used to determine the accuracy of vocabulary usage. Base on

textbook “Writing English Language Tests”, testing vocabulary divided into seven

techniques for testing vocabulary. But, before we are explain about that, we have to

know the describes the individual aspects of vocabulary :

 Synonym

 Antonym

 Collocation

 Definition

 Denotation

 Connotation
  Meaning depending on the context

1. Selections Of Items

A carefully selection, or sampling, of lexical items for inclusion in a test is

generally a most exacting task. For example :

“How much is a……… to Tokyo.please?

“Nine hundred yen, and a return is sixteen hundred yen’

Single = Correct word

Ticket = Contextually Relevant

2. Multiple Choice Items (A)

Multiple choice, this technique is easy to mark but quite difficult to design.

We can use it either for testing single words, words in sentences or in texts.

Many multiple-choice vocabulary test items of the type being dealt with in this

section rely on the context itself to provide grammatical clues which

automatically rule out at least one of the options. These kinds of test items are

useful in many respects but may possibly belong more to tests of grammar and

structure rather than to vocabulary. Nevertheless, there can be little objection to

introducing,say,a few items on verb patterning in a test of vocabulary. It is useful

to distinguish between the following two major kinds of multiple choice

vocabulary items.

For Example :

“He’s been very feeble since his illness”.

A. Unwell B. Thin C. Foolish D. Weak

3. Multiple Choice Items (B)

In this section are more difficult to contruct than those in the previous

section. The problem is chiefly one of the context : too little context is

insufficient to established any meaningful situation, while too much context

may provide too many clues (grammatical and semantic).

For Example :

“I saw a nasty….. between two cars this morning”.

A. Happening B.Danger C. Damage D. Accident

4. Sets (Associated Words)

Many of the difficulties arising from the testing of collocations are avoided

by the testing of word sets.

For Example :

Son happy arrive

Father married depart

Boy engaged go away

Brother single leave

5. More Objective Items

Useful for classroom tests. Write a word in each blank. The word you write

must be the correct form of the word on the left.

For Example :

Care  Be … when you cross the road.

Interest do you think this book is…?

6. Matching Items

Matching test Through matching we normally test the meaning of words, usually

words of the opposite meaning. Students do not produce any vocabulary, they

only match given 32words. This type of exercise is easier to design than

multiple choice but Ur stresses that the last pair of words, if the student has

matched the pairs correctly, can be matched without any knowledge because

they are left. This can be prevented by giving more options in one column than
in the other one. There are also other possibilities than just matching words of

opposite meaning. We can design a test where words and pictures are being

matched, for example fruit or means of transport etc. Another modification can

be putting words into appropriate category, for instance, fruit and vegetables:

For example: Put these words into the correct column:

apple, grape, carrot, banana, cauliflower, spinach, strawberry, potato, cherry, melon

1. Writing sentences Students have to make sentences from given words.

For example:

– Healthy : You need to eat more vegetables and less fat to be healthy.

– Violence : ……………….

– Elephant : ……………….
 1. Sentence completion Students are given incomplete sentences containing

words that we need to test. Their task is to complete these sentences so that

they make sense.

For example: Finish the following sentences:

– I feel depressed when…

– I never have an appetite when…

– It was a great relief when…

7. Completion Items

The following types of completion items can be used for the testing of

vocabulary. Tests which present such items in a context are generally

preferable to those which rely on single words or no definitions.

For Example:

Snakes are one of the (1) d-m-n—t groups of (2) r-pt---- : there are at

least 2,000 different.

 NAMA KELOMPOK 5

ERNI TAHIR

NURTRISINA JUNIARTI

MUH.FIRMAN