Chapter 4 Standardized Testing

Standardized tests are used in all public schools in the United States, as well as many other countries. These are tests given to students that are regulated on a state government level. They are designed to gauge students level of comprehension in a variety of subjects, such as math, reading, and science. The questions are all specifically designed and the same tests are given to all students, in different versions. There is an immense amount of pressure placed onto the schools, teachers, and students to perform well in these tests, which pose the question, is this truly an accurate way to judge a student’s intelligence?

The Advantages of Standardized Testing

Chapter 3 Designing Classroom Language Tests

Designing Classroom Language Tests

Since the beginning of our learning process, we were asked to answer tests in order to be promoted to the next level. But at some point we have never asked ourselves if they are appropriate designed, what is the real purpose of the test? What are the objectives of it? and what kind of grading or feedback is expected?. Due to this we as teachers have to pay close attention when constructed them for our students. Consequently, it is suggested to choose one test type according to what we want to evaluate.

Chapter 1 Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation

Differences between Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation

What Do We Mean by Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation?

When defined within an educational setting, assessment, evaluation, and testing are all used to measure how much of the assigned materials students are mastering, how well student are learning the materials, and how well student are meeting the stated goals and objectives. Although you may believe that assessments only provide instructors with information on which to base a score or grade, assessments also help you to assess your own learning. Education professionals make distinctions between assessment, evaluation, and testing. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, all you really need to understand is that these are three different terms for referring to the process of figuring out how much you know about a given topic and that each term has a different meaning. To simplify things, we will use the term "assessment" throughout this tutorial to refer to this process of measuring what you know and have learned.

chapter 2 Principle of Language Assesment

I.                   PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

Practicality

A test that is prohibitively expensive is impractical. A test of language proficiency that take a student five hours to complete is impractical-it consumes more time (and money) than necessary to accomplish its objective. A test that requires individual one-on-one proctoring is impractical for a group of several hundred test-takers and only a handful of examiners. A test that takes a few minutes for a student to take and several hours for an examiner to evaluate is impractical for most classroom situations. A test that can be scored only by a computer is impractical if the test takes place a thousand miles away from the nearest computer. The value and quality of a test sometimes hinge on such nitty-gritty, practical considerations.