English Test Paper Evaluation - Essay Example

 English Test Paper Evaluation Sometimes people might wonder what the exact use of test papers is and why teachers tend to focus their evaluation on this specific area. For secondary learners of English, test papers might seem very stressful, but indeed they have their purpose in use. The success of a test consists in a good structure, clear topics and tasks, variety of items and the creative part that is involved in creating and solving it. In order to determine the efficiency and the lacks of a test paper, we shall take as an example a normal test that contains three main parts: reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary and a writing part. First of all, if all this in a test paper is inserted in a test paper, one must be careful to balance the quantity of items for a selected category. Second of all, the test has to have a medium length. For example if the test is too short, the evaluation of the gained knowledge cannot be assessed properly. On the other hand, if the test is far too long, the students will become anxious and nervous and they will have the constant feeling that they cannot finish the test in time and get a high score. A moderate, but various test could be the answer. The test should assess all the information given, but do it with a variety of items, that challenge imagination and that do not get the students in the state of frustration. Actually what must be taken into account is the fact that a test paper is just another mean of evaluation the student. It is not the ultimate mean and it should be treated this way by teachers. Evaluation has to be done for the student and with the student. The students can be given samples of the items that will appear in the text and therefore appreciate their own response to different types of exercises. It is a general rule that tests should be addressed and designed at a medium level. It is proved that from a class 90% of the students are at a medium level in their scholar performance. Of course it is recommended to have exercises that appeal to the less prepared and also to the best from a class. Anyhow as a general consideration the exercises proposed have to be different as difficulty and arranged either from the easiest to the hardest, or randomized for more diversity. Reading comprehension is probably one of the most interesting approaches to language. It requires not only reading skills, but also logic and good vocabulary. Hirsch Jr. states that “a big difference between an expert and a novice reader is the ability to take in basic features very fast, thereby leaving the mind free to concentrate on important features.” (Hirsch 3) In this way, the progress of a student can be monitored and his lacks in understanding the language can be corrected. The text must be carefully chosen. For example a text that contains way too many technical or medical terms is rather improper for a secondary learned, unless he was introduced before in the terminology. One of the most used methods is to include roughly-tuned texts that have a real source, but were changed in order to be more accessible for students. Another method is to select a short or medium length article, but in this case we must pay attention to the possible grammar mistakes. The great thing here is that there is a large range of texts from which one can choose. After choosing the text, there are various ways in which we can assess the knowledge gained and the understanding of the text. The students could be asked to summarize the text in 100 words. This is a good method of evaluating if the text was understood and it also gives the students the possibility to use their vocabulary, no matter how poor it is. Some students may find using their own words a little frustrating, but it is important to underline that they do not have to write a lot, just as little as 100 words. Another variation could be stating the theme, the main ideas or even for the more advanced, giving their own opinion on the topic. After the holistic tasks, there can be used some specific ones. For example, explaining the words in the context and using them in their own sentences can activate the vocabulary used. Anyhow one of the most popular reading comprehension exercises is the multiple choice items. The success of this exercise consists in more answer option (up to five) that can reduce the chance of guessing the correct answer. The multitudes of items aid the student and reduce the ambiguity of the task. The multiple choices offers a great flexibility in the goals that are expected and assessed, that can be knowledge, application, vocabulary, analysis and so on. On the other hand there are also some cons when we talk about multiple choices. The reading time increases as the number of answers is higher. There cannot be presented so many questions and it turns out to be difficult to write four or five reasonable and logical answers. Anyhow reading comprehension is one of the greatest ways of getting the holistic image of someone’s knowledge. The test given as sample is a school-based text and for the reading comprehension there is given the following text and tasks: 1. Read the text and complete the tasks that follow it: Angels of Mercy The child in the hospital bed was just waking up after having his tonsils taken out. His throat hurt, and he was scared. However, the young nurse standing by his bed smiled so cheerfully that the little boy smiled back. He forgot to be afraid. The young nurse was May Paxton and she was deaf. May Paxton graduated from the Missouri School for the Deaf at Fulton near the year 1909. Three years later she went to see Dr. Katherine B. Richardson about becoming a nurse. Dr. Richardson was one of the founders of Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, Missouri. She had never heard of a deaf nurse. Dr. Richardson told May that her salary would be very small and that the work would be arduous. However, May said that hard work did not frighten her. Dr. Richardson was impressed with her, and accepted May as a student nurse. Dr. Richardson never regretted her decision. In fact, she was so pleased with May's work that she later accepted two other deaf women as student nurses. The first was Miss Marian Finch of Aberdeen, South Dakota, who was hard of hearing. The second was Miss Lillie "Bessie" Speaker of St. Joseph, Missouri. These three were called "the silent angels of Mercy Hospital" during the time they worked there. May and Marian did not know each other before Marian was hired by the hospital. When Marian first came to the hospital, Dr. Richardson introduced May to Marian. She showed them to the room they were to share. During the next two days, the two girls wrote notes to each other. Finally, other nurses asked Marian if she knew that May was deaf. Marian ran to the bedroom and asked May in sign if she really was deaf. May answered in sign. Then, as the joke sunk in, the two girls burst into laughter. May was always conscientious about following orders. Only once did she disobey Dr. Richardson. It took a lot of time to care for all the sick children, as a result, Dr. Richardson asked the nurses not to take the time to hold the new babies when they were crying. However, May hated to see the babies cry. When Dr. Richardson was not around, she found time to hold them. This small change helped the nursery to run much more smoothly. When Dr. Richardson discovered what May was doing, she recognized that May's actions had improved the nursery, and decided to overlook May's disobedience. In spite of their success, none of the girls finished the nursing program. Marian had to go back to South Dakota because of a family problem. Illness forced Bessie to give up her nursing career. May decided to give up nursing for marriage, and married Alexander Benoit. Dr. Richardson often spoke of her faith in the girls' ability to learn nursing. She wrote to May, "For three years, you have been with us ... It is wonderful to me that no man, woman or child ever, to my knowledge, made a complaint against you ...” A. Choose the correct answer: 1. May Paxton started working at Mercy Hospital: a. in 1909. b. before she graduated from the Missouri School. c. three years after she graduated from the Missouri School. d. three years after she went to see Dr. Richardson. 2. When May disobeyed Dr. Richardson's orders about holding babies: a. Dr. Richardson was very angry. b. Dr. Richardson didn't know because she wasn't there. c. May was fired. d. Dr. Richardson didn't say anything about it. 3. May and Marian communicated by writing at first because: a. they didn't know each other and were shy. b. they were playing a joke on each other. c. neither one of them knew that the other was deaf. d. Marian was a hearing person. 4. We can guess from this passage that: a. May was fond of children and babies. b. May hated her job and left as soon as she could. c. May enjoyed working in the Emergency Room. d. May preferred to work with deaf people. B. Summarize the text above in 100 words C. State the central idea D. State the main ideas of the text E. Express your own opinion about the text by giving relevant examples from your daily life (100 words) The strong points of this exercise are that it offers an accessible text, a real-life story with a moderate use of difficult words. It is a branched exercise that not only takes the best from the multiple choice task, but also asks the student to access his understanding by stating important issues like the summary, the central idea and the main ideas. Probably all these tasks could have been blended in a larger one, but if a teacher wants to test specific skills in the students; this defalcation can be the right choice. The last task offers a great deal of creativity and allows the student to express their own opinion on the text. Anyhow, I believe that the task should have been expressed in a clearer and straight manner, maybe even given the last line of the text: "For three years, you have been with us ... It is wonderful to me that no man, woman or child ever, to my knowledge, made a complaint against you ...”, as a guidance for expressing the opinion. The word limit is enough for point B, but it could be extended to 150 or even 200 words for the E task. The authenticity of the text is not mentioned and we might believe that it is a roughly-tuned one, according to the level of the students. The good thing is that it brings important issues like nursing, deafness, success in life and the students are challenged to think about them and express their own views. A weak point could be the length of the text. The students might have to read it at least two or three times in order to grasp its meaning. But probably that here we have the challenging and the difficulty of the task. Another important aspect that should be tested in secondary learners is grammar and vocabulary proficiency. Although such topics may become frustrating because of the more logical view and hard to grasp notions, the students must be aware of the great importance such language components have. There are various ways to test these skills, but teachers must take into consideration the fact that students must find the items given easy to understand. The task has to be expressed in a clear manner without any ambiguities that can trick the student. There are certain types of exercises that can do well in such cases. Matching is quite challenging for the student. The difficulty of the task can be tuned to the needs of the class. It is used to assess mostly the vocabulary part and it is easy to score. Anyhow this type of exercise does not assess other types of outcomes analysis, synthesis and so on. This is why it is so recommended for vocabulary practice. Rephrasing is again a popular exercise. It can be used successfully for intermediate and advanced students, but it needs a lot of practice in advance in order to grasp the method of solving it. Rephrasing exercises assess both grammar structures and vocabulary. It can be a little difficult for beginners and it can be taught and assessed gradually as the students advance in the language. Another vocabulary exercise that is popular among students is word formation. It is a useful exercise that asks the student to use a word from the lexical family of the word given. It requires good vocabulary and it is also a tool of assessing the richness and the variety of notions a student has gained. It is easy to design and it does not evaluate only the vocabulary skill, but also the understanding of the language, as the word has to make sense in the given context. A negative aspect is that the student might know the word but he is too hasty in writing the first word that comes in his mind that he ignores the context. Grammar can be evaluated through putting the right form of the word in brackets. It is a good exercise that does not take much time, but it demands great focus and good understanding of the text and of the grammar issues. It is easy to assess and therefore it is used when we talk about verbs and their forms and uses. Anyhow the text in which the words appear should be clear about things like time and space in order not to mislead the students. There also can be given some key words or phrases usually used with the specific construction in order to help the student. In some cases, this type of exercise can be combined with the multiple choice and it can give the student the possibility to choose the correct answer. The second variation can be used with beginners or intermediate. At least one of the most difficult grammar and vocabulary exercise can be the “fill in the gap”. It demands great awareness of the language. The student has to complete the gaps from a specific sentence or text in order to give it meaning. The gap can be completed with one or more (up to eight) words or phrases. It is a great tool for teachers, somehow subjective, because students might complete different the gaps. Anyhow in the text there appear certain clues that help the learner to determine the right choice. Even if it seems to be a guessing exercise, gap filling involves more than just completing the gap with a certain word. It implies the knowledge of certain set-phrases or language structure taught before. The evaluation is more dramatic and can be in some instance subjective, but the teacher has to determine which the boundaries of a correct answer are. Also when a teacher designs such an exercise, he has to pay extra attention to what words he will replace with gaps. Gap filling is preferred for its variations and easiness to be molded according to the needs of the teacher and the class. For our test paper, the exercise involves the use of past simple and present perfect simple. 2. Fill in the gaps with the correct tenses: Past Simple or Present Perfect Example: I (see already) _____ the Pope. (key = have already seen) 1.   Although I _______ (finish) my homework I still don't understand this. 2.   What ____________ (you do) when you saw her? 3.   I ___________- (not know) she used to be married. 4.   I ____________ (move) in this house in 2003. 5.   Before I ________ (meet) him I was very lonely. 6.   John ________ (be) in Africa. 7.   I think she ________ (not see) us yesterday at the concert. 8.   I __________ (just think) of a good idea! Let's.... 9.   I __________ (not be) at school last week. 10.   How long __________ (you/live) there before coming here? 11.   She ______________ (never eaten) an octopus. 12.   I don't think she ____________ (do) her homework. 13.   Ann _______________ (believe) that for ages. 14.   I am not hungry. I ______________ (eat/already). 15.   I ____________ (work) here for 3 years now. 16.   I cannot remember when was the last time I ___________ (be) here. 17.   He _____________ (live) here since 1990. 18.   When was the last time you ________________- (call) her? 19.   Yesterday she _____________ (get) a new bed. 20.   ________________- (ever be) in London? The exercise allows the student to have a clear view upon the problem and through the example given at the beginning of the exercise, the student find a useful guide. The exercise does not involve much creativity, but it involves a good knowledge of the problems in question. Anyhow, at need this type of exercise can be molded for testing any tenses we desire. The limitations of the exercise are that it is a little bit too long and the student might get frustrating solving only this type of exercises for their grammar part. Also it only tests two tenses and the relationship between them. Probably that a variation of tenses could make the exercise a little bit difficult, but it would give more information on the student’s handling of the language. Also there could be a strong point in this limitation, because the gaps in understanding a specific part of the language can be tracked down much easier. My opinion is that the concept is good, but the grammar part of this test should have also included other types of exercises from the ones mentioned before. As the reading comprehension and the grammar and vocabulary exercises focus on certain aspects of the language one of the most complex, yet most difficult to assess is the writing task. Teachers can prepare any of the previous items and have a great amount of objectivity in evaluation, but the greatest issue occurs when a writing task is assessed. Writing is loved by the creative students and hated by the ones with less imagination. One alternative is to give three or four topics to satisfy everybody. Nevertheless, so many topics show what the student knows and overlap what he does not know. The advantage is that students with little vocabulary can write an essay for example or a letter by just using what they know. Fulwiler, in his book Writing Across the Disciplines, gives some useful advice to teachers that find it difficult to properly evaluate the writing tasks. Teachers are advised not to hunt down grammar mistakes, but to focus on the content. The purpose of writing is using the language freely and to activate certain skills and abilities. The student has to know to whom he writes for and why he does this thing. The tasks have to be formulated in a correct manner and they can also give guidelines to the student in the case in which the essay is not at the free will of the writer. In order for a teacher to get what he wants from a writing task, he has to state clearly the main things he will focus on when evaluating it. Students cannot guess what they are asked to do. Also the length of the written material has to be limited. It is better to impose a limit of 300 words per essay and have a concise and well-structure feedback, than to get a four page paper with no real content. On the other hand students are motivated to write better a short amount and will start loving writing in English. Anyhow the types of writing samples requested can range from articles, letters, essays of various types, notes, e-mails, dialogue and so on. It is to be avoided in a test paper tasks like writing a poem, art review, book review (unless the book was studied and it is a part of the requested knowledge) or technical essays. The writing task should be for the student and should facilitate his use of language. Probably the writing part of the test is the most exciting one as the student is required to be himself, have an opinion and be free to imagine whatever he wants. In our sample, the writing task asks the students to state what they would feel if they were the person who transfers the Olympic torch. This topic is a very interesting one because not only it tests the writing skill but also it assesses the knowledge of public events and news. The topic can be solved with some extra information about the Olympic Games and the tradition that supports them. This information could have been brought in class or the teacher assumes that the students must know what the topic is about. Anyhow, this possibility of not knowing the customs of the Olympic Games may affect the solving of the exercise. All in all this is a good exercise because it has a personal touch and it is widely known that students feel at ease with writing things that involve their own feeling and thoughts. The structure of the task is good, but it could be improved by adding details like a quote or real-fact issues that can help the students start their paper easier. A quote, for example, could give guidance to what the teacher expects to find in the essay. Besides this, the teacher should have mentioned how he would score the writing task and what he expects from his students in a more open way. The word limitation of 300 is a good one, but my opinion is that it could be intimidating for some students that know the language very well, but lack imagination. I believe that we should have a variation from 250 words, maybe even 200 to the 300 word limit. It is important to give the feeling of flexibility. This written task is one of the most appropriate and it can be extended to almost every country of the world, because the Olympic Games are a symbol for everyone. The impact of this task could be more than just practicing English and the ones that do not know much about the Olympic Games are challenged to do a follow-up. The personal touch involves using familiar items of language and grammar and these can be assessed for the natural speech that comes from the flow of thoughts. The idea of such task is great and practical for its originality and appealing Probably assessing secondary learners of English is a great task and for sure it is challenging for both students and teachers. Even if test papers are great methods to evaluate students, they should be used together with other ways like projects, oral examination and so on. Sometimes the stress that is involved before a test can be constructive, but for some students destructive. That is why all time and through all the test, students should be aware that the evaluation is done for their own sake and that everything that comes out of it should help them to improve their English. Our test is a very interactive one that asks for the best from students. Of course, it could be improve even more, but even in this state gets the best out of the targeted points. A test paper can have its strength and its weaknesses, but one thing is for sure, a good-designed, balanced test can improve students’ confidence in them and also augment their desire to know more and to work harder than before. It is in the hands of the teacher if the test is a chore or a pleasant and constructive experience. References: Young, Fulwiler. (1986). Writing Across the Disciplines. eds. Dartsmouth NH: Boynton / Cook. . Hirsch Jr., E. D. (Spring 2003). Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge of Words and the World. American Educator. TEST PAPER -sample- 1. Read the text and complete the tasks that follow it: Angels of Mercy The child in the hospital bed was just waking up after having his tonsils taken out. His throat hurt, and he was scared. However, the young nurse standing by his bed smiled so cheerfully that the little boy smiled back. He forgot to be afraid. The young nurse was May Paxton and she was deaf. May Paxton graduated from the Missouri School for the Deaf at Fulton near the year 1909. Three years later she went to see Dr. Katherine B. Richardson about becoming a nurse. Dr. Richardson was one of the founders of Mercy Hospital of Kansas City, Missouri. She had never heard of a deaf nurse. Dr. Richardson told May that her salary would be very small and that the work would be arduous. However, May said that hard work did not frighten her. Dr. Richardson was impressed with her, and accepted May as a student nurse. Dr. Richardson never regretted her decision. In fact, she was so pleased with May's work that she later accepted two other deaf women as student nurses. The first was Miss Marian Finch of Aberdeen, South Dakota, who was hard of hearing. The second was Miss Lillie "Bessie" Speaker of St. Joseph, Missouri. These three were called "the silent angels of Mercy Hospital" during the time they worked there. May and Marian did not know each other before Marian was hired by the hospital. When Marian first came to the hospital, Dr. Richardson introduced May to Marian. She showed them to the room they were to share. During the next two days, the two girls wrote notes to each other. Finally, other nurses asked Marian if she knew that May was deaf. Marian ran to the bedroom and asked May in sign if she really was deaf. May answered in sign. Then, as the joke sunk in, the two girls burst into laughter. May was always conscientious about following orders. Only once did she disobey Dr. Richardson. It took a lot of time to care for all the sick children, as a result, Dr. Richardson asked the nurses not to take the time to hold the new babies when they were crying. However, May hated to see the babies cry. When Dr. Richardson was not around, she found time to hold them. This small change helped the nursery to run much more smoothly. When Dr. Richardson discovered what May was doing, she recognized that May's actions had improved the nursery, and decided to overlook May's disobedience. In spite of their success, none of the girls finished the nursing program. Marian had to go back to South Dakota because of a family problem. Illness forced Bessie to give up her nursing carreer. May decided to give up nursing for marriage, and married Alexander Benoit. Dr. Richardson often spoke of her faith in the girls' ability to learn nursing. She wrote to May, "For three years, you have been with us ... It is wonderful to me that no man, woman or child ever, to my knowledge, made a complaint against you ... " A. Choose the correct answer: 1. May Paxton started working at Mercy Hospital: a. in 1909. b. before she graduated from the Missouri School. c. three years after she graduated from the Missouri School. d. three years after she went to see Dr. Richardson. 2. When May disobeyed Dr. Richardson's orders about holding babies: a. Dr. Richardson was very angry. b. Dr. Richardson didn't know because she wasn't there. c. May was fired. d. Dr. Richardson didn't say anything about it. 3. May and Marian communicated by writing at first because: a. they didn't know each other and were shy. b. they were playing a joke on each other. c. neither one of them knew that the other was deaf. d. Marian was a hearing person. 4. We can guess from this passage that: a. May was fond of children and babies. b. May hated her job and left as soon as she could. c. May enjoyed working in the Emergency Room. d. May preferred to work with deaf people. B. Summarize the text above in 100 words C. State the central idea D. State the main ideas of the text E. Express your own opinion about the text by giving relevant examples from your daily life (100 words) 2. Fill in the gaps with the correct tenses: Past Simple or Present Perfect Example: I (see already) _____ the Pope. (key = have already seen) 1.   Although I _______ (finish) my homework I still don't understand this. 2.   What ____________ (you do) when you saw her? 3.   I ___________- (not know) she used to be married. 4.   I ____________ (move) in this house in 2003. 5.   Before I ________ (meet) him I was very lonely. 6.   John ________ (be) in Africa. 7.   I think she ________ (not see) us yesterday at the concert. 8.   I __________ (just think) of a good idea! Let's.... 9.   I __________ (not be) at school last week. 10.   How long __________ (you/live) there before coming here? 11.   She ______________ (never eaten) an octopus. 12.   I don't think she ____________ (do) her homework. 13.   Ann _______________ (believe) that for ages. 14.   I am not hungry. I ______________ (eat/already). 15.   I ____________ (work) here for 3 years now. 16.   I cannot remember when was the last time I ___________ (be) here. 17.   He _____________ (live) here since 1990. 18.   When was the last time you ________________- (call) her? 19.   Yesterday she _____________ (get) a new bed. 20.   ________________- (ever be) in London? 3. If you were one of the person transfer the olmypics torch, how do you feel? ( 300 words) Read More