TESTING READING COMPREHENSION
TESTING READING
COMPREHENSION
Reading
comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a writing.
So, how to test reading comprehension?
There are some way to test reading comprehension based to
believeable sources.
A. Specifying what the
candidates should be able to do
1. Content :
a. Operations
These may be devided into two part,macro-skills and micro
skills.
* Macro-skills are realated to needs or course objectives,
they are :
-
scanning text to locate specific
information
-
skimming text to obtain the gist
-
identifying stages of an argument
-
identifying examples presented in
support of an argument.
* Micro-skills ,such as :
-
identifying referents of pronouns
-
using context to guess meaning of
unfamiliar words
-
understanding realation between
parts of text by recognizing indicators in discourse, especially for the
introduction, development, transition, and conclusion of ideas.
Then there is what would be recognized as
the exercise of straight forward grammatical and lexical abilities, such as :
-
Recognising the significance of
the use of the present continuous with future time adverbials
-
Knowing that the word “brother”
refers to a male sibling
And finally, low-level operation, like
distinguishing between the letters m and n, or b and d.
b. Types of Text
These might include : textbook, novel,
magazine, newspaper, (tabloid or quality), academic journal, letter, timetable,
poem, etc. test designers should know how best to describe the text types for
their particular purposes. How they do it is less important than the thoroughness
with which they identify relevant types of text.
c. Addressees
These will obviously be related to text
types, and it may not be necessary to specify further : for example we know the
intended audience for quality newspaper. But textbooks, for instance, could be
for school children or university student.
d. Topic
It may often be appropriate to indicate the range of topic in
only very general term.
2. Setting Criterial Levels
of Performance
In norm-references testing our interesting
is in seeing how candidates perform by comparison with each other. A candidate
should be expected, in principle, to score 100 per cent. But, since we know
human performance is not reliable, we can set the actual cutting point rather
lower, say at 80 per cent level. In order to distinguish between candidates of
different levels of ability, more than one test will be required.
B. Setting The Tasks
1. Selecting Texts
Here are some ways for selecting texts
-
try to select as representation a
sample as possible
-
include as many passage as possible
-
to test scanning, look for
passages which contain plenty of discrete piece of information
-
choose texts which will interest
candidates
-
avoid texts made up of information
which may be part of candidates’ general knowledge.
-
Do not choose texts which are too
culturally laden
-
Do not use texts which student s
have already read.
2. Writing Items
a. Possible Technique
-
Multiple Choice
A multiple choice test item is usually set
out in such a way that the candidates is required to select the answer from a
number of given option, only one of which is correct.
Example :
On the Beach
Amir and
Bima are SMP students. They live in Bandung .
They usually go to the beach during the holidays, they can choose one from many
beautiful beaches in Indonesia .
1.
What are Amir and Bima?
a. Teachers c. SMP
students
b. Customers d. SMA students
the correct answer is “C”. It’s called by Multiple Choice
test.
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Unique Answer
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Short Answer
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Guided Short Answer
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Summary Cloze
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Information Transfer.