TESTING LANGUAGE SKILLS

A test as a set of or spoken questions used to find out how someone knows about the subject and after seeking feedback.
The characteristics of test consists of tasks or collection of tasks that are used to enable the systematic observation and recording behaviour that are selected to represent important goals.
TYPES OF TESTS:
(A)ESSAYS allow pupils to express themselves freely in answers to a particular questions . The emphasis is their overall understanding of the questions.
Long essays include verbs like discussing explaining ,applying and so on.
Short essays require to treat the subject as brief as possible . Terms commonly associated with short essays are like describe ,define ,compare ,contrast ,outline etc.
(B)OBJECTIVE TEST restricts students 's responses to a number of symbols ,words or phrases like simple sentences . One of being is considered the correct answer.It can be answered in three ways:
• Supply items test is used to determine the ability to recall or organise the appropriate term ,sentence or phrase to complete the statement. At times a number of words or phrases has placed below the question from which the student would pick the most suitable to complete the sentence
NB:The wording must be suitable specific enough to avoid ambigous responses. There must only one correct answer . Too many blank space might confuse the stands.
The selection item test like true/false avoid using negative questions. Matching item test a choice is made from among the same set of alternatives .The items may consists of several terms may be defined. While the alternatives will consists of the difference of such items.
Multiple choice is the test's introductory statement is a basic characteristic of a multiple choice as it contains the criterion of which the answer as it can be selected out of several alternatives.
It may be in the form of question or complete statement.
The statement must be carefully worded inorder to avoids vagueness and misinterpretstion . The designed distractors must be meaningful and state your question positively. Constructed respond choices must be grammatically consistant with the term. For example, The boy ---- to school everyday.
A go B went C going D goes
The pictorial item test used bothe primary and secondary schools to measure objectives such as recall of information or complete missing parts.
Rank order item test ,pupils expected to indicate appropriate order of elements presented to them.
The major advantages of objective test is its allowance of comprehensive coverage of the syllabus.