Reading Tests

READING TESTS
• Tests of reading come in a wide variety of forms and evaluate a

broad spectrum of reading activities.
• From pre-reading concerns (learning the Roman alphabet, for
example, or word-attack skills) to reading comprehension, reading
speed and skimming techniques.
• Reading speed is important for students with lots of out-of-class
reading to do. Skimming is handy for people who need to hunt for
information in print (reading a newspaper as well as doing research
in a library)
• Advanced and more specialized applications include translations,
reading aloud, and reading literature. The advanced applications are
helpful for translators as well as radio and television announcers.
• But the heart of reading evaluation in most schools is reading
comprehension.
• We will look at limited-response techniques (in the pre-reading area)
and we will discuss how to test sentence comprehension and passage
comprehension.
Limited responseF
• For those teaching beginning reading.
• It is recommended informal techniques such as exercises and
individual practice.
• The most typical test of this skill is the “same-different” technique,
which is also used as a reading exercise in an occasional ESL text:
Examples:
sad sat S D
red red S D
meat meet S D
This can be also used with phrases:
from the mayor / for the mayor S D
with her brother / with her brother S D
• A similar testing arrangement has the student circle the odd item.
net net ten
naps span naps
• A third form uses a key word. Students have to circle the matching
word from a list of four items.
pots:
stop pods pots spot
figure:
figure finger fissure ringer
• Directions for these kind of test should be very simple. They can be
read aloud by the teacher to help those whose reading is limited. If
necessary, directions can be given in the native language.
Alternate forms of limited-response items
1. Advanced odd items.
Items All different All the same
speak peaks seeks ___ ___
peace peace peace ___ ___
into bed in the bed in the bed ___ ___
2. Key word and odd option
pleasure: pleasing pleasure pleasure pleasure
Want to go: want to go want to go want to go won’t go
Advantages of Limited-Response Items
1. These are easy to construct and score.
2. Only the recognition of letters is required (making this a simple task
for beginning students).
Limitations of Limited-Response Items

3. This is not an integrative skill involving actual reading.
4. Overemphasis on this technique could reduce reading speed.
Exercises
Testing sentence comprehension
• There is no need to test comprehension of an essay if students have
difficulty understanding a sentence.
• Sentence comprehension must precede essay comprehension.
• Some sentence-level comprehension items are good for beginning
students.
• It is suitable for students with limited skill in English.
• Other good reason to use these types of questions is that much of what
we read every day appears in only a single sentence or phrase.
“Keep Off the Grass,” “Open Other End,” “No Trespassing,” “Help Wanted”
Elicitation Techniques
1. Picture cues
Choose a set of pictures and ask the students to circle the right picture.
Ex. The children are playing on their new toy.
• For a larger picture we can prepare true-false items.
For example:
The robber cannot see the TV. T F
• Or yes-no question could be asked:
Is the lady reading the newspaper? yes no
• You can also have multiple-choice questions on a single picture.
• More reading is involved here. This kind of question is usually more

difficult than the true-false or yes-no item.
2. Phrase and sentence cues
• One of the simplest forms of sentence comprehension is the true-
false sentence.
• It is used with beginners. Students look for truths, untruths, or
impossibilities:
• We can teach and test the recognition of signs which can be an

interesting activity.
• What we test depends on the age and interests of our students and
on what we teach.
You can also use this as a pre-test.
The understanding of signs requires that students become familiar with

new vocabulary items as well as with the gramatical structures that are
used.
• The paraphrase is a good way to check for more exact or detailed
comprehension of phrases and sentences.
• The meaning of complex gramatical structures such as the conditional

is often the key to the meaning of an entire passage.
• However, there are items that do not necessarily use a paraphrase of
the entire sentence.
• There are three cautions to keep in mind when preparing sentence

and phrase items:
1. Don’t make the answer rely on knowledge of facts that have
nothing to do with language skill.
2. Unless you are testing cultural facts, don´t make the answer depend
on a knowledge of a specific culture.
3. When preparing multiple-choice items, make the choice simple and
clear
Instruction preparation
• Where beginning students speak the same language, instructions can
be given in the native language, if necessary.
• When a set of pictures is used, you can prepare directions like the
following:
• Here are instructions for true-false statements:

• For much more advanced students, these directions could be used
with sentence-paraphrase items:
Alternate forms of sentence comprehension

As we have seen, we can test phrases as well as sentences. We can use
pictures with sentences alone. We can have the picture circled, or we
can use true-false or yes-no questions with pictures.
In addition, we can use true-false questions without a picture. Here is a
multiple-choice alternate form of this last question type:
Advantages of sentence-comprehension items
1. Easy to write true-false items on pictures.
2. Good for testing the skills of near beginning students.
3. A rapid way to test reading comprehension.
Limitations of sentence-comprehension items

4. Fiding good pictures can be rather time consuming.
5. Not all reading skills are covered in sentence-comprehension
questions.
Exercises
TESTING PASSAGE
COMPREHENSION
• The most intregrative and challenging kind of reading test type-passage
comprenhension.
Context selection
• Selecting what to test depend on what kind of reading matter you have
used with your students.
• Besides the usual articles and stories, you can include advertisements,
want ads, business and social letters, driver´s licence and loan
applications, bank statements, rental and sales agreements, and mail
order catalogs.
• Other reading materials may include texts from other clases at school such
as biology, history, or chemistry.
Question Techniques for Beginners
There are two useful approaches for testing beginning students who
can read simple passages.
1. True-false items.
Rather easy to prepare, and for beginning students they are easier than
regular multiple-choice items. Example:
• One problem with true-false questions is that students might simply
guess the right answer.
2. Matching technique
Students match material in the passage with material in the question.
It is like “copy work”. Example:
• Notice that the question and the answer are lifted right from the
original passage. This gives some practice in handling questions, but
little comprehension is required.
• A variation on this procedure asks students simple questions on
dialogs that they have practiced in class.
Question Technique for More Advanced Students
1. Standard Multiple-Choice
• There are many ways to test reading.
• One of the best is a reading passage followed by multiple-choice questions.
• Another is books from other classes; only if your students have the same
classes in school.
• The number of passages and the length of each depend on your particular
test.
• Usually longer passages will run from 100 to 300 words.
• Selections for less advanced students will run from about 100 to 200 words.
• Those for more advanced students will range from 150 to 300 words.
• Selections with considerable variety, detail, and contrast are easiest to
prepare questions on.
• Plan to use a variety of types of questions on your reading test.
• One important type is the paraphrase. Example:
• The key portion that we will use for our paraphrase question is “In
many U.S. cities, thousands of young people are..learning karate”.
• The paraphrase of this is “Karate is being taught to many young
Americans.”
• A second type of question, the synthesis item, requires integration of

ideas from more than one sentence- sometimes from the entire
selection.
• For example, in one simple story used to test reading comprehension,
a lady stops at a restaurant to eat. But she looks confused when it is
time to pay her bill. Then she says, “I can’t pay the bill. My purse is
gone.”
• At this elementary level, students simply have to complete “The lady
couldn’t pay for her lunch because….” by choosing this option: “her
purse was lost.”
• In short, they just need to pull together the information found in the
two sentences.
• For more advanced example of the synthesis question:
• A third kind of question is the inference item.
• It requires students to see implications in what they read. Example:
• Various kinds of problems need to be avoided when preparing reading tests
like these for intermediate and advanced students:
(1) Test at these level should not ask for words or phrases exactly as they
appear in the passage. (2) They should avoid illogical distractors, example:
(3) They shouldn’t be written in such way that they can be answered from
general knowledge.
2. Multiple-choice cloze
One example is the correct underlined word is to be circled.
• A test like this can be prepare rather easily. The best distractors come
from student errors.
Alternate Forms of Passage-Comprehension Items

1. Sentence-level items
Easy to prepare, and questions requiring only simple responses
minimize the mixing of writing skills and reading skills.
a. One form is simple completion. Example:
(5.46) The two doctors destroyed the sewer because____________.
A possible answer would be “they wanted to improve health of the
people at Drineffy.” Tell students not to use direct quotes from the
passage.
b. Another open-ended item is sentence explanation. With reference
to the “Karate” selection, we have the following:
(5.47) In just a sentence, explain what you feel the main point of the
passage is. ____________________
2. Editing tests.
• Instead of taking words out, we put words in.
• They must not be put in at fixed intervals.
• The longest gap between added words is 14; the shortest is 6.
• This test can evaluate comprehension. But a special use is to check
reading speed.
• This test can evaluate comprehension. But a special use is to check
Reading speed.
• Advantages of Passage Comprehension
1. This is the most integrative type of reading test.
2. It is objective and easy to score.
3. It can evaluate students at every level of reading development.
• Limitations of Passage Comprehension

1. It is more time consuming to take than other kinds of tests.
2. One pitfall (danger) in preparing it is using questions that deal with
trivial details.
3. Tests which use questions on trivial details encourage word-by-word
reading.
Exercise

Reading Tests

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READING TESTS

• Tests of reading come in a wide variety of forms and evaluate a

Limitations of Limited-Response Items

• More reading is involved here. This kind of question is usually more

• We can teach and test the recognition of signs which can be an

The understanding of signs requires that students become familiar with

• The meaning of complex gramatical structures such as the conditional

• There are three cautions to keep in mind when preparing sentence

• Here are instructions for true-false statements:

Alternate forms of sentence comprehension

Limitations of sentence-comprehension items

• A second type of question, the synthesis item, requires integration of

Alternate Forms of Passage-Comprehension Items

• Limitations of Passage Comprehension

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