A test or examination is an assessment intended to measure a testtaker'sknowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in many other topics (e.g.

, beliefs). A test may be administered orally, on paper, on a computer, or in a confined area that requires a test taker to physically perform a set of skills. Tests vary in style, rigor and requirements. For example, in a closed book test, a test taker is often required to rely upon memory to respond to specific items whereas in an open book test, a test taker may use one or more supplementary tools such as a reference book or calculator when responding to an item. A test may be administered formally or informally. An example of an informal test would be a reading test administered by a parent to a child. An example of a formal test would be a final examination administered by a teacher in a classroom or an I.Q. test administered by a psychologist in a clinic. Formal testing often results in a grade or a test score.[1] A test score may be interpreted with regards to a norm or criterion, or occasionally both. The norm may be established independently, or by statisticalanalysis of a large number of participants. A standardized test is any test that is administered and scored in a consistent manner to ensure legal defensibility.[2] Standardized tests are often used ineducation, professional certification, psychology (e.g., MMPI), the military, and many other fields. A non-standardized test is usually flexible in scope and format, variable in difficulty and significance. Since these tests are usually developed by individual instructors, the format and difficulty of these tests may not be widely adopted or used by other instructors or institutions. A nonstandardized test may be used to determine the proficiency level of students, to motivate students to study, and to provide feedback to students. In some instances, a teacher may develop non-standardized tests that resemble standardized tests in scope, format, and difficulty for the purpose of preparing their students for an upcoming standardized test.[3] Finally, the frequency and setting by which a non-standardized tests

are administered are highly variable and are usually constrained by the duration of the class period. A class instructor may for example, administer a test on a weekly basis or just twice a semester. Depending on the policy of the instructor or institution, the duration of each test itself may last for only five minutes to an entire class period. In contrasts to non-standardized tests, standardized tests are widely used, fixed in terms of scope, difficulty and format, and are usually significant in consequences. Standardized tests are usually held on fixed dates as determined by the test developer, educational institution, or governing body, which may or may not be administered by the instructor, held within the classroom, or constrained by the classroom period. Although there is little variability between different copies of the same type of standardized test (e.g., SAT or GRE), there is variability between different types of standardized tests. Any test with important consequences for the individual test taker is referred to as ahigh-stakes test. A test may be developed and administered by an instructor, a clinician, a governing body, or a test provider. In some instances, the developer of the test may not be directly responsible for its administration. For example, Educational Testing Service (ETS), a nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization, develops standardized tests such as the SAT but may not directly be involved in the administration or proctoring of these tests. As with the development and administration of educational tests, the format and level of difficulty of the tests themselves are highly variable and there is no general consensus or invariable standard for test formats and difficulty. Often, the format and difficulty of the test is dependent upon the educational philosophy of the instructor, subject matter, class size, policy of the educational institution, and requirements of accreditation or governing bodies. In general, tests developed and

administered by individual instructors are non-standardized whereas tests developed by testing organizations are standardized. As teachers, we probably have to set and mark tests within our school as well as prepare candidates for external exams. There are many ways of evaluating learner performance and level, but here well look at four types we may be involved in with our classes. 1. Placement The aim of a placement test is to help sort new students into teaching groups of roughly the same level. As they are not related to any particular course taken these tests often start simply and get more difficult to cater for a range of abilities. We want to know their general standard rather than test specific language points and a variety of test activities will give us better results than a single assessment. The subject matter of any reading and listening texts, speaking and writing tasks is usually based on common human experience something everyone can relate to. An interview is useful as we can gauge the students spoken accuracy and fluency at the same time as putting a face to a filing number. There is research to show that just having students repeat a sentence provides a quick and reasonably accurate marker of ability. Any sentence will do, as long as its not too short or easy. Try this; the opening sentence of Jane Austins Pride and prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Or the beginning of Tolstoys Anna Karenina: All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. How about the first words of Alice in Wonderland; Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do. Lastly, Winnie-the-Pooh starts: Here is Edward bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. All you do is have students come in one by one, say the sentence, tell the student to repeat and note the number of words the student says before the repetition breaks down. With lower level students say just the first part of the last two or say the sentence twice.

If you have twenty students to put in two groups, the ten who managed the greatest number of words go into one class and the rest into another. I suggest this sentence repetition idea as a quick rough and ready way to allocate students to levels when placement at the start of term has to be done rapidly. It also gives you the opportunity to meet all the students. 2. Diagnostic A diagnostic (also known as formative or progress) test lets you and the students know how well they have learnt particular course elements and are typically done at the end of course book units or recent classwork. The test content and question types should be familiar to students and you should expect a high degree of success as they know whats in the test. The results also show which areas need revising with the class or individuals. 3. Achievement Also called an attainment or summative test, an achievement test aims to measure what has been learnt over a longer period of time than a diagnostic test. End of course school tests, as well as externally set exams, show the standard reached and results can be compared to other students. An achievement test doesnt relate to a particular course book, but to the aims of the syllabus. International exams such as the Cambridge ESOL suite are an example where the standard required to pass is consistent year to year. A problem with these tests is that you cannot examine everything in the course in a few hours, so you have to choose samples. There may be one discrete item on the third conditional and none on other conditional forms. Does the test assume that a student getting this item correct can also use the other forms? 4. Proficiency Cambridge IELTS and the American TOEFL tests are proficiency tests in that they aim to provide a snapshot of a candidates ability to apply what they know. Such tests have a future orientation and are often used by further education bodies, employers and immigration authorities to determine acceptable standards for applicants. The question asked is whether their English is good enough to cope with foreseen demands and a

way to try and assess this is by representative testing and purposive testing. The former is concerned more with the quality of language. You might assume that correctly filling in a cloze passage means the student grasps the structure of the language. The latter focuses on effectiveness of communication. Can the student write an appropriate letter or follow instructions. These four test types overlap; there are elements of proficiency in the three other types, but all have to be valid, reliable and practical. A marking scheme has to be drawn up and results collated. Well consider what to test, how to mark and what constitutes a pass in another article.
Types of Test Questions Multiple Choice 1. Make certain you read the directions and mark the answers according to the directions. The directions may tell you there is more than one right answer or to skip questions youre not sure of, or only do 5 out of 10. If you dont follow the directions accurately, you may lose valuable points for no good reason. 2. Look over the entire test quickly. Plan time accordingly. 3. If you get stuck on a question, mark it, and skip it for now. Struggling to answer a question you are unsure of wastes time and increases stress. Do all the questions you know first, then come back to the others later. Also, some other question may trigger an answer to the earlier one. 4. Read every word of each question. 60% of all test question errors come from misreading the question or not reading it thoroughly. 5. Read the stem and think what the answer might be before you look at the choices. This prevents you from grabbing the first answer that even remotely looks correct.

6. Use key words to help you determine an answer. Watch for words like, first, main, most important, only, etc. 7. Use the process of elimination. Ignore silly options. Watch for grammatical give-aways: The best fruit in an (answer has to start with a vowel). 8. Watch out for not, never. These words will indicate that you are looking for an answer that is basically incorrect: Which of these procedures would never be used with a comatose patient? 9. Seriously consider the longest answer as the correct one; it often is. 10. If youre using a scantron, check periodically to be sure youre still on the correct number. 11. Dont go back and change answers unless you read the question incorrectly. Most of the time doing this will result in an incorrect final answer. 12. If you have absolutely no idea what the answer could possibly be, pick