19 2 Subject Matter
The selection should reflect the various kinds of reading material assigned in the school courses. For these the test writer may draw up on such works as
biographies, prose fiction, encyclopedia entries, and non technical on the natural and social sciences.
3 Style and Treatment of Subject Reading tests should generally include various types and styles. However,
all should possess reasonable sense as a piece of writing. The paragraphs in a reading test should a deal chronologically with series of events, b compare or
contrast two or more people, objects or events, c present an author‘s individualistic opinion on a familiar subject.
4 Language The test writer must always set realistic tasks for his test population, which
consists of a second or foreign language. Therefore, overloaded passages with extremely difficult lexical items andor complex structure may have to be adapted.
However, the simplification of reading passages must be carefully controlled so that the test is made so easy that it fails to discriminate between students on
various level of proficiency.
c. Advice on Item Writing
There are several advices in writing items in a reading test. They are: 1 vocabulary and syntax items should be kept as simple as possible so that the real
problem is the interpretation of the passage instead of on the questions that are asked about it.
20 2 The “stem” or “lead” of the item should establish the problem so that it makes
clear what kind of information is being asked for. 1.
Example: Bad Item John… .
A. obviously liked what he heard B. became angry upon hearing Mary’s words
C. didn’t understand what he was tol D. ridiculed Mary’s ideas
Example 1 above has no clues to the readers what is being asked. The above items might be written:
2. Example: Good Item It was clear from John’s reactions to Mary’s speech that he… .
A. agreed completely with what she said B. found her remarks highly insulting
C. didn’t understand what she said D. consider her ideas to be quite foolish
3 Selection of the correct answer should involve interpretation the passage, not only matching the words in the choices with the same words in the paragraph.
3. Example: Passage and Bad Item
Early the next morning I received yet another letter from Roger, informing me that he as still confined to his bed with the same
mysterious illness and urging me to come to his aid. I set forth at once for Portsmouth, arriving shortly before duck. I went with all possible
haste to High Street and thence to the familiar old house, which appeared in no way altered since the days of my previous visit. Yet
upon entering, I was amazed to find its dark, cavernous rooms completely deserted.
When the writer found Roger’s house deserted, he felt… . A.
angry B.
relieved C.
amazed D. happy
21 Example 3 above involves only matching word: amazed is the term used in
both passage and test item. A less superficial testing of comprehension would be: 4. Example: Passage and Good Item
The writer mentions his surprise at… . A. receiving a letter from Roger
B. learning of Roger’s illness C. seeing the appearance of Roger’s house
D. finding that Roger was not at home 4 All items should require a careful reading of the paragraph. It should not be
possible to answer items correctly purely on the basis of outside knowledge or to eliminate some of the choices because they are clearly illogical or because they
conflict with one another. 5. Example: Bad item
We may infer from this paragraph that people… . A. all need the same kind of rest
B. do not usually need rest C. rest much more than any should
D. do not all rest in the same way Choice B is absurd, choices A and D are clearly opposite. On the basis of
logic, D is more likely the answer. D would also seem more likely to be true than C. the item should be written
6. Example: Good Item The central idea of the paragraph is that people… .
A. cannot maintain good healthy without proper rest B. do not all rest in precisely the same way
C. tend to get more rest than they actually need D. can rest better after they have had exercise.
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d. Assembling the Final Form
