Chapter 4: Tests of grammar & usage pot

Multiple - choice items the incomplete statement type with a choice of four or five options  Seven types of multiple – choice items in the textbook; however, item types 2 & 3 are prefe

Chapter 4:

Tests of grammar & usage

Heaton, J.B (1988) Writing English Language Tests Longman

1 multiple - choice items

2 error recognition items

3 rearrange items

4 completion items

5 transformation items

6 items involving the changing of words

7 ‘broken sentence’ items

8 pairing and matching items

1 Multiple - choice items

 the incomplete statement type with a choice of four or five options

 Seven types of multiple – choice items in the

textbook; however, item types 2 & 3 are

preferable because the options do not interrupt the flow of meaning in the sentence: these items present the entire sentence so that it can be read

at a glance (read page 34 – 39)

Constructing multiple choice items

 Use samples of students own written work to

provide the basis for the test items

 Constructors of classroom tests and school

achievement tests should take advantage of the types of errors made by students in their free composition and open-ended answers to

questions

2 Constructing error recognition

multiple-choice items

 Type 1: Each sentence contains 4 words or

phrases underlined, marked A, B, C and D Select the underlined word or phrase which is incorrect

or unacceptable (TOEIC &TOEFL)

 Type 2: Each sentence is divided into 4 parts by slashes (//) Each part is marked by A, B, C and

D This item type allows test writer to test errors caused by omission In practice, this method

doesn’t work well (page 40)

3 Constructing rearrangement items

 taking several forms, the first of which to

consider  the multiple - choice type

 useful to change from a multiple-choice item

format to a format involving some actual writing

 Ss  unscrambling sentences and writing out each sentence, putting the words in their

correct order

4 Constructing completion items

 Careful constructed completion items  useful means of testing a student’s ability to produce acceptable and

appropriate forms of language

 These items measure production rather than recognition, testing the ability to insert the most appropriate words in selected blanks in sentences.

 The words selected for omission: grammatical or

functional words (e.g preposition, articles….); content words selected in a reading or vocabulary test

 Completion items cannot be machine marked

5 Constructing transformation items

 extremely useful for testing ability to produce structure in the target language and helping to provide balance when included in tests

containing multiple choice items

 It can measure some of the skills tested in

composition writing

6 Constructing items involving the

changing of words

 This type of item is useful for testing the student’s ability to use correct

tenses and verb forms

7 Constructing ‘broken sentence’

items

 testing the student’s ability to write full

sentences from a series of words and phrases,

so it does not allow the test writer to

concentrate exclusively on testing those

particular grammatical features practiced in the classroom

 When setting this item, the instructions should

be clear One or two examples should be

8 Constructing pairing and matching

items

 Usually consisting of a short conversation: e.g a

stimulus in the form of a statement or question followed

by a response often in the form of a statement

 Used to test ability to select appropriate responses to

stimuli which would be presented orally in normal

everyday situations

 Useful for testing students’ sensitivity to appropriacy

and their awareness of the functions of the language

rather than the knowledge of grammar

9 Constructing combination

& addition items

 These objective type items have long been used in past tests They should be used sparingly as they involve largely

mechanical responses