47 newspapers. Besides gathering information, the researcher also conducted a
preliminary interview. The subject of the interview was the English teacher of RSBI seventh grade class of SMP Pangudi Luhur I Yogyakarta. The details of the
information of these two are presented below.
a. Students’ Needs Based on the Interview with the English Teacher
The researcher conducted a preliminary interview with the English teacher of RSBI seventh grade class of SMP Pangudi Luhur I Yogyakarta on
February 10, 2010. The teacher described the characteristic of RSBI seventh grade students of SMP Pangudi Luhur I Yogyakarta as smart students who had higher
level of English skill than students from regular classes. They also learnt in a different learning-teaching environment where they had more complete facilities.
In other words, it can be said that they learnt in a more conducive and supportive learning class. Besides, according to her, the teaching process was also conducted
differently from the teaching in regular classes. The RSBI students used English during the process of learning and teaching in the class, and sometimes they used
bilingualism method where English was used in the same time with Bahasa Indonesia. The students were mostly active students. Most of them could be
categorized as intermediate English learners. However, there had not been a test that was designed specially that met the needs of those students.
The English teacher of RSBI seventh grade class mentioned some intended criteria of the English test for RSBI seventh grade students. She said that
the English test must be more difficult than the test for students in regular classes. The difficulty is in terms of the vocabularies, questions, and options. The
48 vocabularies should relate to science andor they could be taken from real sources.
The questions should be implicit instead of explicit. Further, the options should be made seemingly similar. Based on the information gathered from the interview
with the English teacher of RSBI seventh grade class, the researcher designed a combination of Reading and Writing test using authentic texts as the reading
passages and designed Writing tasks that looked similar to real-life tasks. The authenticity was meant to create challenges and difficulties besides scientific
vocabularies. Further, the results of the need analysis can be seen in Appendix C.
b. The References to Design the Test
