Tài liệu Tập huấn ra đề kiểm tra Tiếng Anh THCS 1

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NINH THUẬN
TÀI LIỆU BỒI DƯỠNG GIÁO VIÊN
VỀ BIÊN SOẠN ĐỀ KIỂM TRA,
XÂY DỰNG THƯ VIỆN CÂU HỎI VÀ BÀI TẬP
MÔN TIẾNG ANH
CẤP TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ
Báo cáo viên: NGUYỄN TẤN PHƯỚC
Background in
Tests and Test Preparation
Types of tests
Proficiency tests
Achievement tests
Diagnostic tests
Placement tests
Types of tests
Proficiency tests: TOEFL; IELTS; FCE; CAE; CPE, etc. No specific course based, general knowledge and skill based. Independent of teaching. Measure general language ability.

Achievement tests: directly related to classroom teaching and learning. Content based or objective based. Final or progressive.
Types of tests
Diagnostic tests /ˌdaɪ.əgˈnɒs.tɪk/ : to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses
Placement tests: to classify students according to their language ability
Types of tests
Test Construction:
The Elements
VOCABULARY QUESTIONS
GRAMMAR QUESTIONS
READING QUESTIONS
WRITING QUESTIONS
VOCABULARY QUESTIONS
Where can we select the words?
How can we choose the question types?
What is the implied skill or purpose in selecting the item?
Multiple-choice completion
(1) Select the words to be tested.
(2) Get the right kind of sentence to put each word in (this sentence creating the context is called the stem).
(3) Choose several wrong words to put the right word with (these wrong words are called distractors). Three distractors plus the right word are enough for a written item.
(4) Finally, prepare clear and simple instructions.
Advantages of Multiple-Choice Completion
1. It helps students see the full meaning of words by providing natural contexts. Also, it is a good influence on instruction: It discourages word-list memorization.
2. Scoring is easy and consistent.
3. It is a sensitive measure of achievement.
Limitations of Multiple-Choice Completion
1. It is rather difficult to prepare good sentence contexts that clearly show the meaning of the word being tested.
2. It is easy for students to cheat by copying what others have circled.
Word formation
Advantages
1. It reflects teaching approaches.
2. It is generally faster and easier to construct than are items with distractors.
Limitations
1. Fewer words can be tested this way than with multiple choice.
2. There is some difficulty in avoiding ambiguous contexts. /æmˈbɪg.ju.əs/

GRAMMAR QUESTIONS
Grammar tests are designed to measure student proficiency in matters ranging from inflections (bottle-bottles, bake-baked) to syntax. Syntax involves the relationship of words in a sentence including manners such as word order, use of the negative, question forms, and connectives.
Multiple-choice completion
While multiple-choice completion is an efficient way to test grammar, teachers need to be cautioned about the temptation to use this bid of item for all of their testing needs
Though multiple-choice tests can be used successfully in testing grammar, they don`t seem to work as well in testing conversational ability.
Grammar Choice
What structures you have taught since the last test?
What to include and exclude?
How to give different "weight" to various grammar points?
Context Preparation
A good context is very important!
Assuming that you have decided what points to test, what multiple-choice type to use, and how many questions to prepare, you are now ready to start writing the items. First, choose a structure and then use it correctly in a sentence.
Distractor Preparation
Avoid using two obvious items!
E.g.: _______ the ones who know the answers.
A. They are B. There C. They`re D. Their
Avoid items that test divided usage, or items that only test different levels of formality.
E.g.: You can get it from the lady _______ he sold it to.
A. which B. who C. whom D. why
Distractor Preparation
Avoid confusing or tiring your students by having them reread unnecessary material.
E.g.: If I had a new fur coat, __________.
A. I showed it to everyone. B. I`d show it to everyone.
C. I`ve shown it to everyone. D. I`ll show it to everyone.
-> (revised) If I had a new fur coat, ______ it to everyone.
A. I showed B. I`d show C. I`ve shown D. I`ll show
Distractor Preparation
Also, it is best not to mix categories like the following:
E.g.: They just bought __________ furniture.
A. a few B. several C. some D. with
(revised) They just bought ___________.
A. a few furnitures B. several furnitures
C. some furniture D. a furniture
Alternate Form of Multiple-Choice Completion
Error identification:
E.g.: Rain is slight acidic even in unpolluted
A* B
air, because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and other natural acid-forming gases dissolve
C D
in the water.

Advantages of Multiple-Choice Completion
1. It is impossible for students to avoid the grammar point being evaluated.
2 Scoring is easy and reliable.
3. This is a sensitive measure of achievement (and like other multiple-choice language tests, it allows teachers to diagnose specific problems of students).
Limitations of Multiple-Choice Completion
1. Preparing good items is not easy.
2 It is easy for students to cheat. (It is possible to create a second form of the test by rearranging the items, but this is time consuming for the teacher.)
3. It doesn`t appear to measure students` ability to reproduce language structures (although in actual fact this kind of test is a good measure of the grammar subskill).
4. This can have a negative influence on class work if used exclusively. (Students may see no need to practice writing if tests are objective.)
Sentence Completion
Simple-completion items used for testing grammar consist of a sentence from which a grammatical element has been removed.
E.g.: "He went to school." or "I would have gone if he had invited me”.
Alternatively, we can have: (1) the option form, (2) the inflection form, and (3) the free-response form.
These three forms vary not only in difficulty but also in objectivity and in the degree of active or passive response that is required. As a result, you can tailor the test to the students that you have.
The steps: (1) Select the grammar points that need to be tested; (2) Select the appropriate type of question, (3) Provide an appropriate context; and (4) write good instructions.
The Option Form
The easiest simple-completion items are like multiple-choice questions with only two options.
E.g.: Direction: Complete the following sentences with "do" or "make."
1. He ___________ a lot of money last year.
2. I always _________ my best.
This option form can easily be adapted from exercises in your textbook. Sometimes a new pair of options is given for each sentence.
E.g.: The women ___________ for the tragedy. (was crying, cry)
The magician performed some _______ tricks. (astonishing, astonished)
Three, four or more choices can be listed to test students’ knowledge.
The Inflection Form
Testing the mastery of inflections provides for a productive response. These vary from simple comparatives to verb tense questions:
E.g.:
1) He`s the __________ (tall) person in the class.
2) They ___________ (be) in Colorado last week.
Be careful about context as it may affect students’ responses. This problem can be solved by giving part of the verb or adding more context.
E.g.: He is ____ing (sing). (or) He ______ singing now. (Add one word.)
or "What`s Tom doing now?" "Oh, he _______ (sing)."
Another technique is to use a separate blank for each word in the verb phrase.
E.g.: He _____ _____ (sing) now.
The Free-Response Form
Sometimes a few simple terms can be used, if everybody in the class knows what they mean. Here are some sentences from an English test:
Example: Add a question tag to these sentences:
1) Hamlet was indecisive, __________?
2) Polonius knew a lot of aphorisms, _________?
The Free-Response Form

* It is good to use an example to make sure that no one is confused.
Example: Directions: Write in the missing part of the two-word verb.
"What time did he get __________ this morning?"
The Free-Response Form
Directions: Write in a two-word verb that has the same meaning as the word provided in the brackets.

"Jack __________ (arose) later than usual.`"
“You would get better sooner if _____________” (Here the conditional is being tested.)
The Free-Response Form
These take longer to correct than other completion types, and they also take more language skill to evaluate properly. Consider a few acceptable ways that students could complete examples:
“You would get better sooner if _______”
"if you dressed warmer," "if you`d see a doctor," "if Mother were here," "if we had some medicine for you."
Advantages of Sentence Completion
1. These are generally easier to prepare than are multiple-choice items.
2. These give the appearance of measuring productive skills because some items permit flexibility and original expression.
3. There is no exposure to incorrect grammatical forms.
4. These provide a sensitive measure of achievement.
Limitations of Sentence Completion
1. These are usually more time consuming to correct than are multiple-choice questions. Not only can poor penmanship be a problem but also "irrelevant" errors beyond those being tested.
2. Occasionally students can unexpectedly avoid the structure being tested.
Cloze
Cloze tests are prose passages, usually a paragraph or more in length, from which words have been deleted. The student relies on the context in order to supply the missing words.
Very popular for test constructors
Easy to prepare and rather easy to score
A good measure of overall proficiency
Preparing a Cloze Test
The steps in preparing a cloze test are simple: (1) Select an appropriate passage (e.g., from the reading material in your English class);
(2) decide on the words and number of words to take out;
(3) write the instructions and prepare an example.
Advantages of Cloze
1. It is easy to prepare and quite easy to score.
2. It is a good measure of integrative English skills.
3. Standard cloze is a good measure of overall ability in English.
Limitations of Cloze
1. It is not a sensitive measure of short-term gains.
2. It is difficult for teachers who are non-native English speakers to choose acceptable equivalent words.
READING QUESTIONS
Question Techniques for Beginners
True-false and matching
True-false questions taken from the text.
Matching here means students matching material in the passage with material in the question.
A "guessing correction" may be used!
Question Techniques for More Advanced Students
Standard Multiple-Choice: supposedly one of the best!
The number of passages and the length of each depend on your particular test.
Usually longer passages will run from 100 to 300 words. Selections for less advanced students will run from about 100 to 200 words. Those for more advanced students will generally range from 150 to 300 words.
Three questions per hundred words, or four at the most.
Use at least three to five passages from different sources to give students fair treatment.
Students who read fairly well can answer about a question a minute-including the reading of the passage. Slower students and those reading difficult technical material may need almost twice as much time.
Use a variety of types of questions on your reading test.
Paraphrase
Synthesis
Inference
Things to remember: (1) Questions should not ask for words or phrases exactly as they appear in the passage. (2) Avoid illogical distractors. (3) They shouldn`t be written in such a way that they can be answered from general knowledge.
Advantages of Passage Comprehension
1. This is the most integrative type of reading test.
2. It is objective and easy to score.
3. It can evaluate students at every level of reading development.
Limitations of Passage Comprehension
1. Passage comprehension is more time consuming to take than other kinds of tests.
2. One pitfall in preparing this kind of test is utilizing questions that deal with trivial details.
3. Passage comprehension tests which use questions on trivial details encourage word-by-word reading.
WRITING QUESTIONS
Question Techniques
There are many kinds of writing tests.
There are usually distinct stages of instruction in writing, such as pre-writing, guided writing, and free writing.
Each stage tends to require different types of evaluation.
A great number of factors: mechanics (including spelling and punctuation), vocabulary, grammar, appropriate content, diction (or word selection), rhetorical matters of various kinds (organization, cohesion, unity; appropriateness to the audience, topic, and occasion); as well as sophisticated concerns such as logic and style.
Limited response
1. Sentence combining
2. Sentence expansion
3. Sentence reduction
Advantages of Limited-Response Items
1. These are generally quite easy to construct.
2. These are suitable for students with limited ability in English.
3. Except for the open-ended variety, these are rather objective for a writing-related task.
Limitations of Limited-Response Items
1. These do not measure actual writing skill.
2. These can be rather slow to correct-especially the open-ended variety.
Guided writing
Objectives: to check student’s ability to handle controlled or directed writing tasks.
Multiple-choice sentences can be used!
Unrelated sentence.
Sentence reordering.
Building from a Paragraph Outline
Example:
I / buy / new white swimsuit / I forget I bring / I / mad / Becky / mother / take / we / shop / Monday night / I find / pretty blue / not expensive. / I start / pay / wallet / gone /I / borrow / money / Becky / mother / I / certainly / upset
The student paragraph might read:
I bought a new white swimsuit, and then I forgot to bring it. I was really mad. But Becky`s mother took us shopping Monday night, and I found a pretty blue one. It was not very expensive. I started to pay for it, and my wallet was gone! I borrowed some money from Becky`s mother, but I was certainly upset.
Students may write a paragraph, beginning with a topic sentence:
I have read _________. (Give an account of reading that has given you special insights.)
I have talked to _________. (Tell about people from whom you have learned a lot.)
Or Directions: Write a paragraph of about seventy-five words describing a store or business that you know very well. Base your paragraph on answers to the following questions:
1. What is it called?
2. When did it start to do business?
3. How many employees does it have?
4. What do the employees have to do?
…
Advantages of Guided-Writing Tests
1. Guided-writing tests are rather quick and easy to construct.
2. Because they require an active rather than a passive response, guided testing techniques give the appearance of being an effective measure of writing.
3. Guided-writing tests provide appropriate control for those students who are not ready to write on their own.
Limitations of Guided-Writing Tests
1. Guided-writing tests do not measure ingredients such as organization found in extended writing.
2. Guided writing of the paragraph-outline variety is often rather time consuming and difficult to grade.
3. Guided writing of the paragraph-outline variety is difficult to score with real consistency.
Free Writing
The purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of the total composition including sentence-level accuracy, larger rhetorical matters such as unity, coherence, and organization, as well as effectiveness in conveying ideas to the intended audience – including socially appropriate language and appropriate selection of supporting details.
Use pictures or simple charts, tables, or diagrams to help students and teachers in controlling the contents of the writing.
Another way to control content is to provide a situation that determines what students are to write about.
Advantages of Free-Writing Approaches
1. Despite in limitations, this is an important, sound measure of overall writing ability.
2. This can have a good effect on instruction: Students will be more motivated to write in and out of class, knowing that their test will be an actual writing task.
3. There is virtually very little chance of getting a passing grade on a free-writing test by cheating.
Limitations of Free-Writing Approaches
1. Grading of free writing tends to lack objectivity and consistency.
2. Free writing is time consuming to grade.
EVALUATING THE TESTS
- How to tell whether or not we have been successful-that is, have we produced a good test?
- The following sections describe how this can be done:
Preparing an Item Analysis
Difficulty Level
Discrimination Level
Distractor Evaluation
SETTING UP A MATRIX
Bước 1. Liệt kê tên các chủ đề (nội dung, chương…) cần kiểm tra
Bước 2. Viết các chuẩn cần đánh giá đối với mỗi cấp độ tư duy
Bước 3. QĐ phân phối tỷ lệ % tổng điểm cho mỗi chủ đề
Bước 4. Quyết định tổng số điểm của bài kiểm tra
Bước 5. Tính số điểm cho mỗi chủ đề tương ứng với %
Bước 6. Tính số điểm, số câu hỏi cho mỗi chuẩn tương ứng
Bước 7. Tính số điểm và số câu hỏi cho mỗi cột
Bước 8. Tính tỷ lệ % tổng số điểm phân phối cho mỗi cột
Bước 9. Đánh giá lại ma trận và có thể chỉnh sửa nếu thấy cần thiết.
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