skills and the rudimentary skills of reading, writing, and computing. Thus, the written portion tests their ability to read and understand silently, to identify and locate useful
information from texts at different levels of difficulty, and to receive dictation or write the required information, and to carry out basic arithmetic operations. Each section of the
oral test will include a few practice items. Most test items use a multiple choice format with some using a short-answer format to reduce ambiguity in scoring. All responses will
be coded as either correct 1 or incorrect 0 for data entry and statistical analysis. An estimate is given of the time needed to complete each test section.
4.1 Entry point diagnostic test
―The notion of an entry point is based on the two-fold assumption: 1 that an assessor is able to quickly guess the approximate level of the test taker just based
on a quick casual conversation and 2 that if a person is able to function or perform at a given level, he or she has a high or pretty high mastery of everything
which precedes the entry point‖ from a personal consultation with Dr. Stephen L. Walter.
This diagnostic test will be given in the form of a simple passage right after a
brief interview of the test taker ‘s background information by the assessor. The assessor
will ask the test taker to read the text as presented in the box below. Maya is a young woman living in Kavre Palanchok district. She is
now twenty-one years old. She is married to Dorje who is one year older than her. She has three children. The eldest is a four year old boy, the
second a two year old boy, and the youngest a five month old girl. She loves her family so much.
[Total number of words: 62]
The allocated time for this test is one minute. However, the assessor can stop the reading before the time is up if the test taker cannot read the first five words in the first
sentence correctly. While the test taker reads the passage, the assessor should make an instant decision on the approximate performance level of the test taker based on the
following observations: 1
If the test taker is unable to even attempt the task, struggles a lot from the first sentence, reads syllable by syllable with many errors, and cannot read
through the first two sentences correctly, he of she can be considered as the Non-literate L0.
2 If the test taker slowly reads the first two sentences with many errors,
pauses, and self-corrections, he or she can be classified at the Below Basic level L1.
3 If the test taker can read the whole text phrase by phrase or sentence by
sentence with frequent self-corrections and a few pauses and sound-outs, he or she can be classified as Basic level L2.
4 If the test taker can read the whole passage at a reasonable pace with fewer
errors and self-corrections, he or she can be considered as Intermediate level L3.
5 If the test taker can quickly read through the whole passage at good pace
with good expression andor intonation and few self-corrections if any errors, he or she can be classified as Advanced level L4.
The test takers classified into groups of L0 and L1 will be given only some sections of the oral test corresponding to their levels, but there will be no written test for
them. Those classified into groups L2, L3, and L4 will be given some sections of the oral test and designated part of the written test corresponding to their levels. Different sets of
test components to assess the test takers at different levels are as presented in Table 26 see test items only for different levels in Appendix F.
Table 26: Test component sets for different levels
Non-literate L0 Below Basic L1 Basic L2
Intermediate L3 Advanced L4
Precursor skills Oral numeracy
– except applied
numeracy Precursor skills
Oral numeracy Oral reading
– except passage reading
Oral numeracy Oral reading
Written test for L2
Oral passage reading
Written test for L3 Oral passage
