It has already been pointed out that True/False items, which are to be

11 Testing reading

found in many tests, are simply a variety of multiple choice, with only one
distractor and a 50 percent probability of choosing the correct response by
chance! Having a ‘not applicable’ or ‘we don’t know’ category adds a second
‘distractor’ and reduces the likelihood of guessing correctly to 33 percent.
Short answer
The best short answer questions are those with a unique correct response,
for example:
In which city do the people described in the ‘Urban Villagers’ live?
to which there is only one possible correct response, e.g. Bombay.
The response may be a single word or something slightly longer (e.g. China
and Japan; American women).
The short answer technique works well for testing the ability to identify
referents. An example (based on the newspaper article about the re-
creation of ancient foods on page 152) is:
What does the word ‘she’ (line 53) refer to?
Care has to be taken that the precise referent is to be found in the text. It
may be necessary on occasion to change the text slightly for this condition
to be met.
The technique also works well for testing the ability to predict the
meaning of unknown words from context. An example (also based on the
ancient foods article) is:
Find a single word in the passage (between lines 10 and 20) which has
the same meaning as ‘minute opening or passage’. (The word in the
passage may have an ending like -s, -tion, -ing, -ed, etc.)
The short answer technique can be used to test the ability to make various
distinctions, such as that between fact and opinion. For example:
Basing your answers on the text, mark each of the following sentences
as FACT or OPINION by writing F or O in the correct space on your
answer sheet. You must get all three correct to obtain credit.
1. Farm owners are deliberately neglecting their land.
2. The majority of young men who move to the cities are successful.
3. There are already enough farms under government control.
Because of the requirement that all three responses are correct, guessing
has a limited effect in such items.
Scanning can be tested with the short answer technique:
Which town listed in Table 4 has the largest population?

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 According to the index, on which page will you learn about Nabokov’s

11 Testing reading
interest in butterflies?
The short answer technique can also be used to write items related to the
structure of a text. For example:
There are five sections in the paper. In which section do the writers
deal with:
a. choice of language in relation to national unity [Section …..]
b. the effects of a colonial language on local culture [Section …..]
c. the choice of a colonial language by people in their fight for
liberation [Section …..]

Exam folder 
d. practical difficulties in using local languages for education [Section …..]
e. the relationship between power and language [Section …..]

Reading
Again, and Use
guessing of English
is possible Partbut
here, 7 the probabilities are lower than with
Gapped text
straightforward multiple choice.
In this part of the Reading and Use of English test, you read an article from which six paragraphs have been
Aremoved.
similar example
The paragraphs is shown
are placed below
in a jumbled from
order after Cambridge
the main Complete
text. You need to First
decide where in the 2nd
text the paragraphs have been taken
2 from. This tests that you can recognise how a text is structured, and how
edition Student’s Book :
a text creates meaning across paragraphs.

1 You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract.
Choose from the paragraphs A–G the one which fits each gap 1–6. There is one extra paragraph which you do
not need to use.

2 Work in pairs. Discuss the words/phrases which helped you to decide what fits where.

Is your glass half full or half empty?

Are you happy? Did you open the curtains this morning, ‘Through monkeys, humans and lots of
see that it’s yet another day of sunshine and bounce out of animals, the amount of activity in the
bed? Or are you the kind of person who sees the sun and front cortex does seem to be a good
starts worrying about getting sunburnt and the problems marker for positivity and negativity.’
it may cause for gardeners? Positive people have a more active left
frontal cortex; the presenter was found
1 to have a substantially more active right
But a television documentary, which is to be broadcast frontal cortex – proving his assertion
next week, suggests that in fact they play only a very that he is one of life’s pessimists. ‘When
small part and that you can, in fact, train yourself to have I look into the future, I see all the things
a more sunny attitude to life. It argues that it may indeed that are going to go wrong, rather than
be simple to change negative people into positive ones. the things that will probably go right,’ he says. He also
suffers from insomnia. Professor Fox is among a growing
2 number of psychologists, however, who believe that he
Next week’s programme is timely, because the happiness and others like him can change this brain asymmetry and
of individuals is something that policymakers have thus their personality through a series of exercises.
started to take very seriously indeed. Indeed, yesterday,
a new charity called MindFull suggested that mental 5
health should be taught in schools. And later this month, It seems simple. But surely, trying to pick out a smiling
the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish its expression isn’t going to make me more optimistic.
National Well-being report. This will draw on a number of Professor Fox tells me: ‘I was very sceptical when I got
studies which suggest that our positivity has an impact on into this initially. But the task we used in the show has
our health and our educational achievements. been used with kids with self-esteem issues. And it does
seem to have very powerful effects. It’s early days, but the
3 signs are that it is definitely effective.’
In other words, being happy could add years to your life.
It doesn’t just benefit your health, either. Educational 6
attainment, too, seems to be linked to attitude. Nick Of course, many psychologists argue that relentless
Baylis, a consultant psychologist, works with the pupils happiness is neither normal nor healthy. Professor Fox
at a school in London that, five years ago, had very poor says: ‘There are situations when things go wrong, and
academic results. Now, 87% of its pupils are leaving school having a healthy dose of pessimism can be good. But the
with good qualifications. Baylis believes that teaching evidence shows that, broadly, having a positive attitude
both the staff and pupils ‘well-being’ and coping strategies really does boost your well-being.’
was key to this success.

10
2.
Notee Xthat
a M Fthis er 
o L D example is taken from an exam preparation book, hence the instruction to
work in pairs, which of course would not be appropriate in a test proper.
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 11 Testing reading
A F
The most striking example comes from Oxford, Ohio, For years, many scientists believed that your
which in the 1970s conducted a study of its inhabitants, personality was predetermined. They were of the
then aged over 50. So who has survived in good health? opinion that it was your genes which were responsible
Those who had a positive outlook on their life and for whether you were an optimist or a pessimist.
impending old age have lived, on average, 7.6 years
longer than those with negative views.
G
Next week’s documentary will try to provide a
physiological explanation for their achievements. For
B
It worked for the presenter, who over a couple of the programme, the presenter had his brain scanned by
months of exercising was able to recalibrate his brain. Professor Elaine Fox, a neuroscientist at Oxford and
He says that he is sleeping better ‘though I wouldn’t author of Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. She says brain
call myself a heavy sleeper yet’, and that he is more asymmetry is very closely linked to our personalities.
optimistic. So should we all be doing the exercises? ‘I
think anyone could do them, but I suspect a fair number
who start then let it slide,’ he says.
EXAM ADVICE
● Read the whole of the text first.
C ● Read through paragraphs A–G and notice the differences
If the show touches a nerve in the same way as last between them.
autumn’s documentary by the same director about ● Pay careful attention to connecting words throughout
fasting – which kick-started the phenomenally popular the text and paragraphs, as well as at the beginnings and
5:2 diet – many of us could soon be undertaking mental ends of paragraphs.
workouts in our lunch hour. ● Consider each paragraph for every gap. Don’t assume
you have been correct in your previous answers as you
go along!
● Read the whole of the text again when you have
D completed the task.
Professor Fox gives her views on the subject in next ● Don’t rely on matching up names, dates or numbers in
week’s programme, pointing out that the research has the text and paragraphs just because they are the same
very significant implications for schools and for health or similar.
professionals. ‘However, more work needs to be done ● Don’t rely on matching up individual words or phrases
before the results can be considered conclusive.’ in the text and the paragraphs just because they are the
same or similar.

E
The most basic one is called Cognitive Bias Modification.
To do it, you look at a screen for 10 minutes every day
over several weeks. During those minutes, a series of 15
faces are flashed up. All (except one) are either angry,
upset or unhappy. You have to spot, and click on, the
one happy face.

It should be noted that the scoring of ‘sequencing’ items of this kind

can be problematical. If a candidate puts one element of the text out
of sequence, it may cause others to be displaced and require complex
decision-making on the part of the scorers.
One should be wary of writing short answer items where correct responses
are not limited to a unique answer. Thus:
According to the author, what does the increase in divorce
e X a M Frates
o L D e rshow
 10
about people’s expectations of marriage and marriage partners?
might call for an answer like:
(They/Expectations) are greater (than in the past).
The danger is of course that a student who has the answer in his or
her head after reading the relevant part of the passage may not be able
to express it well (equally, the scorer may not be able to tell from the
response that the student has arrived at the correct answer).

Gap filling
This technique is particularly useful in testing reading. It can be used any
time that the required response is so complex that it may cause writing
(and scoring) problems. If one wanted to know whether the candidate had
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