IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
1. Characteristics of test tasks in English entrance exams
1) Characteristics of the setting
From 2007 to 2014, the VCEEE took place on every July 10th. This was a paper-based test, so the materials and equipment were quite familiar to students: papers, pencils, test booklets, answer sheets. Normally, each examination room had two supervisors, who were often not familiar to the test takers. The English test was in the middle of a speed test and a power test and always lasted one hour and a half. In 2015, the entrance test is combined with high school graduation test and it is planned to take place in July 2015. Basically, the setting characteristics will be the same as previous tests.
2) Characteristics of the
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The number of tasks varies each year (seven in 2010, eleven in 2013, and ten in the 2015 sample. However, all can be put under five tested areas which are phonology knowledge, vocabulary and grammar, indirect speaking, reading, and writing. In the old tests, there are 80 objective test items in total, but the 2015 sample is divided into two parts: the first part consists of 70 objective test items and the second has five rewriting items and a paragraph writing task. Different tasks were always clearly distinguished from one another, and the sequence is fixed within one version but shuffled across versions. Every item was given the same weight of score in the old tests. Meanwhile in the new one the whole objective part covers 80% of the total score, and the whole subjective part takes the rest. In objective part, each item weighs the same 0.125 point, but in subjective section, five rewriting items weigh 0.1 each and paragraph writing takes 1.5 points. More details could be seen in table …show more content…
The new test has the number multiple choice items decrease to 64, and the subjective test items appear in the writing part. The 2015 test takers are expected to write their paraphrased sentences with prompted starting phrases, and then write the whole paragraph on a given topic.
Considering the item number of language components, all three tests have five items pertaining to phonology knowledge; in the case of vocabulary and grammar, two old tests have roughly the same questions number (30 and 33), but there is a drop in 2015 sample test (27). This seems to be the expense for the insertion of writing tasks this year.
Regarding language skills tested, reading is the most dominant and stable area through the years, which is similar to Korean CSAT. There are always 30 items distributed in three tasks including a cloze and two question-answer passages. Differently, writing had rigid format before, but it is coping with the most remarkable change in 2015. Indirect writing items are lessened; subjective paraphrasing and paragraph writing the first time emerge in the new era of English entrance test since 2007. There is no listening in the VCEEE, which is the same situation is for Mongolian tests, but opposite in the case of Korean CSAT. Few items of indirect speaking in VCEEE are outnumbered by the Mongolian
Specific prompts, sample and teaching items individualize the administration and ensure low scores are not due to the subject’s failure to understand the standardized instructions. The KTEA-3 continues to use item blocks, based on educational level, for the Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Written Expression, and Oral Expression subtests with instructions for establishing a basal. The KTEA-3 utilizes only a suggested order of subtest administration; only two of the subtests (i.e., Letter & Word Recognition before Word Recognition Fluency and Nonsense Word Decoding before Decoding Fluency) have a designated order as a minimum level of performance on the former ensures the examinee has the requisite skills to complete the latter. See Table 1 for a summary of the KTEA-3 test and composite
Any diverse group of organisms will not respond identically to a standard test; some will respond positively, and some will respond negatively. The student population of the United States is an extremely varied group, and students will respond differently to the same "standard" test. The format of the current standardized test, all multiple-choice questions, does not allow for variables among the test takers. In fact, the test attempts to erase all the variables and create a uniform ...
Students will get into groups and will take turns reading paragraphs of the text. This will enable them to adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (Language standards 1,3 for 9-10th grade ELA)
This is assessment is supposed to be given verbally by hearing what is being asked by the assessor. In and through this test, the students are not expected to be literate and know how to write or read exactly. In this assessment, they have provided up to four different tests to help in assessing the student 's progress for the end of each term to help see where the students are academically. Now, when giving this test, as the assessor we will ask the students to respond to certain sounds that letters make. It works on the sounds of the letters and not the letter itself. The assessment can take however long the student needs (PASA:Kindergarten, 2014, pp. 1-16). I find that these four different assessments would be very helpful to find out what the student is grasping when at school and how they are
High school students face a stressful and strenuous time and are challenged by the vigorous preparation for VCE exams. The ‘do or die’ VCE exams that student face is a crisis time for them, instead of thinking about their graduation. Expecting students to take these exams is unfair due to its numerous reasons of unfairness and should not take place. The Victoria school board should repeal these exams.
The program was doing well to improve student literacy, until there became a problem with the fluency monitoring. The teachers would administer the prompts to the children in three different levels. They would collect their data on the students by recording the number of words read correctly per minute. The scores seemed to improve at all levels in the first through fourth grade and at the first and second level of fifth grade during the first year. But, at the third level of the fifth graders the scores took a huge drop. The scores continued to drop the following year at the same level as well. The teachers reported their problem and the passage at the fifth grade level was more difficult than the passage of the sixth grade level. When the passage was later analyzed, it was placed at the 9th and 10th grade level. The committee examined all the prompts and assessed the readability levels of all the passages. They chose two prompts for each grade level and devised a protocol whereby the teachers will use the same prompts at each of three points during the year. The teachers will give the difficult prompt first and if the student scores in the 50th percentile, the student will not require any further testing. The student’s success with a reading will depend on the difficulty of the text and the students background knowledge and own interests.
The district is now making all teachers use an assessment tool called iReady. It is a website that assesses students in math and reading. They are first tested on a kindergarten through fifth grade range to find out what they know. Then the program takes that score and determines the right level for the child and they are tested again on the level. Once all students have been assessed the program orders the students from highest to lowest and by average grade level skill they are on: early second grade, middle second grade, late second grade or any other grade. The teacher uses those scores to create her reading groups, math groups and the students she will give extra assistance to. They haven’t officially established how many times and when they will do this iReady assessment but for now they are doing it once a week for forty five minutes. The test also flags if they spent too long or too little time on a question. The ones that spent less than 15 seconds per problem are to go back and do the assessment again.
The fifth claim is Australia should seek permission to use the UK Government’s Phonics Screening Check structure and item generation database (Buckingham, 2016). Evidence to support this claim is the report of The UK Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. The author provided so various kinds of details about the implementation of UK Phonics Screening Check, why it should be implemented, what the method of the application is, how the validity and the reliability of the test is. Also who should be included and excluded from the analysis, and how the method can improve student’s literacy level in the country. She assumes that this approach can be implemented in Australia, and Australia does not need to create its assessment independently. She assumes that even though Australia and United Kingdom has different policy context, the rationale is the same and by conducting a pilot study before implementing the Phonics Screening Check nationally, it will allow any technical
Morrison (2012) reported that less than 50% of children in the grade one age cohort had achieved "mastery in the Grade one Readiness test" in 2007. According to the Vision 2030 Education Sector report, this is a test that all the children at the grade one level should be mastering. The test is intended to provide specific information about competencies and deficiencies so that corrective measures can be taken. The target was that 90% of children should achieved mastery by the year 2030. The 2011 reports stated the national results for 2008 by subject area and the number of children that was proficient. Overall, 46.7% in General Knowledge, 67.1% in Number Concept, 48.2% in Oral Language, 67.6% in Reading and 62% in Writing and Drawing. These are the basics for which less than half the children are proficient in some areas, and no more than two thirds of the children are proficient in others. These statistics reflect that there may be deficiencies in different aspects of students’ listening skills and literacy development. Thus, The Grade One Individual Learning Profile was introduced in 2007/8 which replaced the Grade One Reading Inventory. One of the areas of literacy that may be contributing to students’ poor performance is their underdeveloped listening skills.
One of the most popular standardized tests is the SAT which is short for the Scholastic Assessment Test. The goal of the SAT is to predict how well a student will do in his or her first year in college. There are two kinds of SATs: SAT I, which is a college readiness test, and the SAT II, which is just a subject test. The SAT I contains three subjects: Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. It has ten sub-sections that average twenty-five minutes each and all deal with the three main subjects. Almost every question has multiple choices with up to four given choices to choose from per question. According to the creators of this test and the colleges that require an applying student to take it, reading, writing, and mathematics are the three most important academic subjects to know and understand before going into a college. But how well does the SAT accurately predict a student’s college success? According to research, not very well. In the book Standardized Testing, Fair Test, which is the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, states that “The SAT I has li...
Morse, Jodie. "Is That Your Final Answer?.” Educational Tests and their Measurements. June 2000. Web. 30 June 2015.
There are many things wrong with the world right now and that does not exclude the US, while there are many issues with dealing with an increasingly global society but none of them are as easy to fix and as urgent reforming language education. Although it is important for language to be standardized so that we can all understand each other, the state of language education is holding back non-native and native speakers alike.
The ability to test a student’s language skills is essential to have as a teacher. Over the years, classrooms have become much more diverse with a wide variety of impairments being presented on a daily basis. Often, these disabilities contain a language impairment that appears as a side effect of the main disability. Unfortunately, assessing language is not as easy as one may think because it is not clearly defined and understood. Kuder (2008) writes that “…language is not a unitary phenomenon- it is ‘multidimensional, complex, and dynamic; it involves many interrelated processes and abilities; and it changes from situation to situation” (pg. 274). Language also develops at different times for different individuals, thus making language assessment an even harder task for test administrators to grade and evaluate. In order to further understand the language impairment that students present, teachers need to be aware of appropriate language tests that could be administered. In order to assure that the best language test is being issued to a student, several various tests exist to choose from. To test a student’s overall language capability, a comprehensive language test, such as the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) or the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS), could be administered. If a teacher wanted to test a specific language skill such as pragmatics, phonology, syntax, or semantics, the teacher would need to find the best test for the student’s unique situation.
How does your score on the quiz compare with your pre-quiz assessment of your self confidence (Higher, lower, about the same) and if there is a difference why do you think that is
For many years, school systems and parents all over America have been asking- does high school testing measure a student’s knowledge fairly, accurately, and do they benefit the student. The tests do not accurately measure a student’s true academic ability. Furthermore, testing does not always fairly measure a student’s knowledge. High-stakes testing only adds stress to a student’s life. Studies have proven that testing is not beneficial to a student’s educational growth. Testing in high school is affected by different factors; therefore results can be unreliable and not beneficial to the growth of students.