Analysis of a test.

In this activity we analyzed a test from our third language class, which is French. The topic was the passé composé tense.

1. What is the purpose of the test? To assess passé composé; grammar and writing.
2. Does it represent direct or indirect testing (or a mixture of both)? It is a direct test; the student is asked to do the skill that is going to be assessed.
3. Are the items discrete points or integrative (or a mixture of both)? A mixture of both; the first part of the test is discrete and integrative, knowledge about passé composé is fundamental but also vocabulary is need it to understand what type of subject the answer requires. The second part is integrative, in order to answer it, the student needs to have other knowledges and be able create the right answer.
4. Which items are objective, and which are subjective? The first half of the test is objective; it only has one right answer. But, the second half is subjective because does not have a standardized answer; it is left open to be assessed under the teacher’s criteria.
5. Is the test norm-referenced or criterion referenced? No.
6. Does the test measure communicative abilities? Would you describe it as a communicative test? Justify your answers. Yes, indeed it had a half were a brief description needs to be done. It is communicative because it has an activity that involves a real life situation about the student’s life, facts that the he can use on his real context.
7. What relationship is there between the answer to question 6 and the answers to the other questions? That even though that the communicative abilities are being assessed subjectively, they are guided in a direct form; under the instruction of using the passé composé.

Tests

Types of tests
✎Proficiency tests
When applying for a bilingual job or a school or just to prove that a candidate is proficient in the language you apply this kind of tests. This test will not be a reflection of the achieved goals during a course or evidence of learned topics; instead it will prove what the candidate can do. A well-known example is TOEFL, or in our case, the English test we took when we applied for this faculty.
✎Achievement tests
These kinds of tests are more used at schools since their purpose is to grade the success in achieving objectives. They can be either final achievement tests or progress achievement tests. They need to follow a course syllabus and can be written, spoken or vary depending on the skill that will be graded. Many progress achievement tests can be applied in order to get better results in a final achievement test. An example of these kinds of tests is unit exams and a final full course exam (semestral).
✎Diagnostic tests
If you want to identify what skills or knowledge a student has mastered and where the student could work or what the student is lacking, you would apply a diagnostic test.
✎Placement tests
If you want to place a new student in a specific learning stage, you have to apply this type of test. These tests can be either pretty standarized or tailor made, so they can be bought. An example would be the kind of test we get when we want to skip a level in our third language.

Types of testing
✎Direct and indirect
Direct testing is when the skill matches what the student is asked to answer. The right answer can only be one. Indirect testing is when the skill not necessarily matches the activity and the answer possibilities can be more that one.
✎Discrete versus integrative testing
Discrete testing is about testing just one element at a time while integrative testing can include many elements.
✎Norm-referenced and criterion referenced
The norm-reference testing has to do with the advantage of relating the test scores from one student to that of other candidates. And criterion referenced is to relate the student scores to whether or not he or she is able to perform a specific task.
✎Objective and subjective testing
If the questions in the test have only one right answer then it is objective. If the questions on the test are open-ended or have multiple right answers, then it is a subjective test.
Computer adaptive testing
If the test is on a computer and the data can be managed through it, then it is computer testing.
Communicative language testing
Oral tests. Or those tests that measure communicative abilities.