This brochure offers a plan to help college students study for tests. It explains how to prepare for a test and reviews techniques for taking multiple choice, essay, and other types of examinations. Organization, planning, and time management are essential for becoming a successful student. Regular reviews are the key to reducing test anxiety and…

Traditional tests fall into two categories, both of which have several advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered when determining the type of test to use. Constructed-response tests, such as essay tests, ask students to construct their own responses. Thus, students are required not only to recall but to organize and often apply…

Writing teachers and educators can add to information from large-scale testing and teachers can strengthen classroom assessment by creating a tight fit between large-scale testing and classroom assessment. Across the years, large-scale testing programs have struggled with a difficult problem: how to evaluate student writing reliably and…

This paper clarifies important distinctions in item writing and item scoring and considers the implications of these distinctions for developing guidelines related to test construction for training teachers. The terminology used to describe and classify paper and pencil test questions frequently confuses two distinct features of questions:…

Direct assessments of the accuracy with which raters can use a rating instrument are presented. This study demonstrated how surplus behavioral incidents scaled during the development of Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) can be used effectively in the evaluation of the newly developed scales. Construction of scenarios of hypothetical…

A study of general student performance in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland undertaken in 1975 is described, and efforts toward developing a new system of school-leaving examinations are discussed. The study was designed to assess existing student evaluation instruments, create new evaluation techniques and instruments, promote cooperation…

Current issues in the literature on the testing of linguistic and communicative proficiency are reviewed and discussed in relation to reading comprehension testing. Several theoretical issues in language testing are discussed, including testing purposes and test validity. Areas of concern regarding methods of testing reading comprehension are then…

This article presents the perspective that the quality of teacher-made, small classroom tests has not improved, and may have declined in recent years. This decline may be due to the fact that teachers have come to believe that the kinds of objective items used in national standardized tests are the only item types appropriate for classroom use.…

Discusses the issue of oral communication tests through an account of an oral test administered to nearly 1,000 students at Yarmouk University Language Center. The ways in which the institution attempted to overcome problems in the oral test's feasibility, validity, and reliability are presented. (Author/CB)

This report presents a study that examined the effects of symptom item formats on estimates of risk status across alternative attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) behavior checklists for 38 referred children. The mean age of the children was 7 years 9 months. The study focused on ADHD risk as measured by two behavior checklists which…

Several multiple-choice item formats are examined in the current climate of test reform. The reform movement is discussed as it affects use of the following formats: (1) complex multiple-choice; (2) alternate choice; (3) true-false; (4) multiple true-false; and (5) the context dependent item set. (SLD)

Presents a study of the effect of question order on student performance on economics tests. Reports that question order has no statistically significant effect on examination scores, even after including variables that reflect differential human capital characteristics. Concludes that instructors need not worry that some examination versions give…

The idea that validity should be considered a property of inferences, rather than of assessments, has developed slowly over the past century. In early writings about the validity of educational assessments, validity was defined as a property of an assessment. The most common definition was that an assessment was valid to the extent that it…

Problems in the testing of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) are examined, focusing on proficiency testing needs and test standardization. Particular attention is paid to listening and reading assessment. The first part of the discussion looks at specific problems with five existing proficiency tests, including such aspects as inadequacy of the…

Rudman and colleagues (1980) deplored the paucity of descriptive information relative to teachers' test use patterns. The present study addresses the abundant prescriptive, and lack of descriptive information concerning teacher testing. A mailed survey procedure gathered testing practice information from elementary and secondary South Dakota…