According to Madsen 1983:3-5 testing is an important part of every teaching and learning experience. Well-made test of English can help students in at least two
ways. English test can help create positive attitudes toward instruction by giving students a sense of accomplishment and a felling that the teacher’s evaluation of
them matches with what he was taught to them. Good English test also help students learn the language by requiring them to study hard, emphasizing course
objectives, and showing them where they need to improve. A good test should fulfill some requirements such as validity and reliability.
According to Ebel 1979:232 there are some factors which build a good test. The factors are relevance, balance, efficiency, specificity, difficulty, discrimination,
variability, and reliability. To make a good test, teacher should support the test with some requirements stated above.
Finally by analyzing the test item of mid-term test of eighth grade students of SMP 33 Semarang in terms of validity, reliability, discrimination power and level
of difficulty of English question items with the study. The writer hopes that the test writers can build good tests for each grader.
1.2 Reason for Choosing the Topic
According to Weir 1995:3 in evaluating students’ achievement the test should relate closely to both the content of what has been learned and also what
things they have been taught. So, by analyzing the test through item analysis, we can indicate which items may be reliable, valid or not, and we can which test has
good quality. A good test means that the test must reliable, valid, moderate in the term of difficulty level, which means that the test is neither difficult nor easy.
Then, the test must meet with the criterion of discrimination power, which is satisfactory, good, reasonably good, or poor item. The item which considered as
poor item should be discarded; it means that the item can not distinguish between the students in the upper group and the students in the lower group well.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Through the study the writer would like to find the answer of the following question. “How good the test of mid-term tests of eighth grade students of Junior
High School?” More specifically, in analyzing the test item, the writer will limit the problem
into the following question: 1
What is the validity of the test items? 2
What is the reliability of the test items? 3
What is the difficulty level of test items? 4
What is the discrimination power of the test items?
1.4 Objective of the Study
The general objective of the study is obtaining an objective description of the structures of a good test item. The objectives are then specified into the following
goals: 1
To describe the validity of each test items. 2
To describe the reliability of each test items. 3
To describe the value of the difficulty level of each test items. 4
To describe the value of the discriminating power of each test items.
1.5 Significance of the Problem
The advantages that can be required from this study are as follows: 1
For students: Students can use the result of the study to make their study more effective with regard to the right materials.
According to Madsen 1983:4 a good test of English can help students in at least two ways. First of all, such test can help create positive attitudes toward
accomplishment. Second, the English test can help students learn the language by requiring them study hard, emphasizing course objectives, and showing them
where they need to improve. 2
For the teacher: Teacher can use the result of the study as a reference when they want to analyze test items. The test plays several important roles, such as
to provide insight into ways of improving the evaluation process and to provide means of diagnosing their own efforts if they have taught effectively.
3 For test maker: The test maker may use it as a supplement in constructing
tests. 4
For the writer: The writer herself especially it can increase her skill in constructing test items.
1.6 Limitation of the Study
