Testing reading has always been indispensable in language tests. The present study aims to evaluate three parallel reading tests from the National College English Test Band Four (CET-4) in June 2021 in terms of reading ability orientations, text readability and its correlations with reading performances. The quantitative analysis reveals: (1) in…

Cloze tests are commonly used in language testing as a quick measure of overall language ability or reading comprehension. A problem for the analysis of cloze tests with item response theory models is that cloze test items are locally dependent. This leads to the violation of the conditional or local independence assumption of IRT models. In this…

Originally designed to measure reading and passage comprehension in L1 readers, cloze tests continue to be used for L2 assessment purposes. However, there remain disputes about whether or not cloze items can measure beyond local comprehension information, as well as whether or not they are purely a test of reading alone, or if performance can be…

Although there are many methods available for assessing text comprehension, the cloze test is not widely acknowledged as one of them. Critiques on cloze testing center on its supposedly limited ability to measure comprehension beyond the sentence. However, these critiques do not hold for all types of cloze tests; the particular configuration of a…

To evaluate the sensitivity of multiple-choice cloze (MCC) tests that use different types of items--syntactic, semantic, and connective--to assess reading ability, 170 English as a foreign language (EFL) students in a vocational college in Taiwan were recruited. The students were divided into two groups (level A and level B) based on their scores…

Cohesion Theory of Halliday and Hasan has been widely applied in different parts of language teaching. As many cohesive devices are used in language, it's very necessary for language learners to understand and identify those devices. Now in China, a large number of college students have to take part in the CET-4 test every year. Thus, it is of…

The current study sought to examine the validity of a General English Achievement Test (GEAT), administered to university students in the fall semester of 2018-2019 academic year, by hybridizing differential information (DIF) and differential distractor function (DDF) analytical models. Using a purposive sampling method, from the target population…

The current study examined the impact of translanguaging on second language reading comprehension. The study involved an experimental and a control group. The participants in the experimental group (n = 38) were offered four opportunities to engage Arabic -- their first language -- in comprehending a text in English. These occasions for…

This study explored the role of vocabulary breadth and depth in second language learners' performance in IELTS academic reading tests in China. Sixty-two Chinese learners of English as a foreign language completed a vocabulary size test, a vocabulary depth test, and an IELTS reading test. Results showed that vocabulary breadth and depth both…

The present study examines the influence of ambiguity tolerance on the performance of Iranian GFL-learners (Note 1) at level B1 in the processing of gap-filling-text tests. It is assumed that learners with more tolerance of ambiguity achieve better results in the reading comprehension or in the contextual guessing of the omitted words. 34 GFL…

In this study, the cloze-elide test was developed and administered under time constraints. This research is aimed to examine the validity and reliability of the speeded cloze-elide test and investigate its relationship with reading comprehension, C-Test, and multiple-choice cloze test. Processing speed is a vital indicator to distinguish high to…

This study has recently been conducted to find out the effect of extensive exposure to reading materials and of moderate amount of exposure supported by explicit instruction on enhancing discourse signaling awareness. Data analyzed quantitatively came from test scores of 36 high school students at elementary level in Istanbul, Turkey, divided into…

The C-test as a measure of first and second language proficiency suffers from ceiling effect. That is, the C-test is very easy for native speakers and for advanced second language learners and many examinees obtain full scores. Therefore, the test cannot distinguish among advanced learners or native speakers. Speeded C-test is suggested as a…

In many reading comprehension tests, different test formats are employed. Two commonly used test formats to measure reading comprehension are sustained passages followed by some questions and cloze items. Individual differences in handling test format peculiarities could constitute a source of score variance. In this study, a bifactor Rasch model…

In this study the magnitudes of local dependence generated by cloze test items and reading comprehension items were compared and their impact on parameter estimates and test precision was investigated. An advanced English as a foreign language reading comprehension test containing three reading passages and a cloze test was analyzed with a…