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Reading Comprehension Tests
Pertemuan 19
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Question types of Reading Comprehension Tests :
1. True or False
2. Multiple Choice
3. Open Ended Choice
4. Information Transfer
5. Cloze
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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES
1. TRUE OR FALSE:
a. it is easy for the teacher to think of good questions
which cover the main points of the text.
b. The questions only test comprehension ( no writing
involved), and are easy to mark.
c. the students can guess the answer: they have a 50%
chance of being right each time. (Therefore, to reduce
the chance of guessing, give three choices: true, false,
don’t know)
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2. MULTIPLE CHOICE :
a. it is easy to mark, so it is widely used in formal tests
b. test only comprehension, but there is only a small
chance of guessing the right answer.
c. it is difficult and more expensive to prepare. It has to
be written by specially trained item writers and to be pretested before use in formal examination. Each item has
to be rigorously edited to ensure that:
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- There is no superfluous information in the stem.
- The spelling, grammar and punctuation are correct
- The language is concise and at an appropriate level for
candidates
- Enough information has been given to answer the
question
- There is only one unequivocally correct answer
- The distracters are wrong but plausible and
discriminate at the right level
- The responses are homogenous, of equal length
and mutually exclusive and the item is
appropriate for the test.
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3. OPEN - ENDED QUESTIONS :
a. it is easy to write but may be difficult to mark.
4. INFORMATION TRANSFER:
a. it is a good way of testing comprehension of the main points of a
text ( because instead of answering a question, the students has to
record information from the text in a different form, e.g. by
completing a table, labeling a picture, drawing a diagram)
b. it may not show whether the student has understood the text
completely.
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5. CLOZE :
a. it is easy to construct and easily scored if the exact word scoring
procedure is adopted.
b. it is claimed to be valid indicators of overall language proficiency.
c. it produces more successful tests of syntax and lexis than of
reading comprehension tests in general.
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Example of Cloze Test
Fill Each of the Numbered Blanks in the Following Passage. Use Only One
Word in Each Space.
At Sixteen Henry Vincent Was Separated From His Family As a Result of the War. He Wandered
Aimlessly From……….(1) Country to Another …………(2) Finally Setting Down in Australia,
……..(3) He Trained ………(4) an Electronic Engineer. He Established ………(5) Own Business
but It Called for So Much Work That Marriage Was Out of the ………(6).
His Retirement Suddenly ………(7) realise ………(8) Lonely He Was and He Decided to
………(9) up a Hobby. With His Interest ………(10) Electronics, Amateur Radio Seemed a Natural
Choice. He Installed His Own Equipment and Obtained a License and His Call Sign, Which Is Set
of Letters and Numbers Used to ………(11) Oneself When Making Radio Contact With Other
Radio Amateurs All ………(12) the World.
Soon Henry Had ………(13) Great Many Contacts in Far-off Places. One in Particular Was
a Man in California ……….(14) He Had Much in Common. One Night the Man in California
………(15) to Mention the Village in Europe He ……….(16) Come From. Suddenly, Henry realised
That This Man Was in Fact His Younger Brother, Peter.At First, the Two Brothers Were at a
………(17) for Words but Then Little by Little They Filled ………(18) the Details of Their Past Lives
and Not ………(19) Afterwards Henry Vincent Flew to California to ………(20) Reunited With His
Brother.
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