Short answer tests

5.2 Short answer tests

A further format that is worth mentioning is short answer test format. According to Alderson (1996:223) short answer tests could be substitutes to multiple-choice tests. The only difference is that apart from the optional answers the students will have to provide short answers. The author of the paper had not used this test format, thus, she cannot draw on her experience. Therefore, she will just list the ideas produced by other linguists, to be more exact Alderson’s suggestions.

Alderson (ibid.) believes that short answer tests will contribute to the students’ results, for they will be able to support their answers and, if necessary, clarify why they responded in that way but not the other. It could be explained that the students will have an opportunity to prove their answers and support them if necessary.

Nevertheless, the short answer tests are relatively complicated for the teacher to be designed. The teacher has to consider a variety of ideas and thoughts to create a fairy relevant test with fairly relevant items. May be that could explain the fact why this test format is not such a common occasion as MCQs are.

At this point we have come to advantages and drawbacks of short answer tests. Weir (1990:44) says that this type of testing differs from MCQs by the absence of the answers. The students have to provide the answer themselves. That will give the marker the clear idea whether the students know what they write about or not. Certainly, the teacher will be definite about the students’ knowledge, whereas in MCQs s/he can doubt whether the students know or have just guessed the correct answer. Moreover, short answer test could make the students apply their various language skills techniques they use while dealing with any reading, listening or speaking activity.

Finally, Weir (ibid.) stipulates that if the questions are well formulated, there is a high chance the student will supply short, well-formulated answer. Therefore, a variety of questions could be included in the test to cover a broader field of the student’s knowledge, and certainly it will require a great work from the teacher.

Nevertheless, there are certain drawbacks displayed by the following test format. One of the major disadvantages could be the students’ involvement in writing. For if we are determined to check the students reading abilities, it is not appropriate to give the students writing tasks due to the high possibility of the spelling and grammar mistakes that may occur during the process. Therefore, we have to decide upon our priorities – what do we want to test. Furthermore, the students while writing can produce far different answers than expected. It will be rather complicated to decide whether to consider them as mistakes or not.

5.3 The cloze test and gap-filling tests

Before coming to the theory on cloze tests we assume that it is necessary for us to speak about a term “cloze”. Weir (1990:46) informs that it was coined by W.L. Taylor (1953) from the word ‘closure’ and meant the individual’s ability to complete a model.

However, to follow the model one has to posses certain skills to do so. Hence, we can speak about introduction of such skill that Weir calls deduction. Deduction is an important aspect for dealing with anything that is unknown and unfamiliar. Thus, before giving a cloze test the teacher has to be certain whether his/her students are familiar with the deduction technique.

 Alderson (1996:224) assumes that there are two cloze test techniques: pseudo-random and rational cloze technique. In the pseudo-random test the test designer deletes words at a definite rate, or as Heaton (1990:19) places it, systematically, for example every 7^th word should be deleted occasionally with the initiate letter of the omitting word left as a prompt:

Although you may think of Britain as England ,i...is really four countries in one. There a.. …..four very distinct nations within the British I………: England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, each with their o…..unique culture, history, cuisine, literature a…..even languages.

(Discovering Britain, Pavlockij B. M., 2000)

However, the task could be more demanding if the teacher will not assist the learners’ guesses and will not provide any hints:

Scotland is in the north and Wales in the west were………separate countries. They have different customs,……………….., language and, in Scotland’ s case, different legal and educational……………….

(ibid.)

The examples shown above do not yield to be ideal examples at all. Without doubt, the material used in the task should more or less provide the students with the appropriate clues to form correct guessing. Notwithstanding, the author of the paper has used such tests in her practice and according to her observations; she can conclude that the tasks with the first letter left are highly motivating for the students and supply a lot of help for them. Moreover, having discussed the following test format the teacher has revealed that the students like it and receive a real pleasure if they are able to confirm their guess and find the right variant.

However, according to Alderson (ibid.), the teacher commonly does not intend to check a certain material by the cloze test. The main point here is the independence of the student and his/her ability to apply all the necessary techniques to fill in the blank spaces. Concerning the mentioned-above scholars, we have to agree that the following type of test is actually relatively challenging, for it demands vast language knowledge from the student. Heaton (ibid.) believes that each third or fourth deleted word can turn into the handicap for the learner due to the lack of prompting devices, such as collocations, prepositions, etc. Whereas, the removal of each ninth word may even lead to the exhausting reading process.

On the contrary, the rational cloze technique, or as it is usually called gap-filling, is based on the deletion of words connected with the topic the teacher wants or intends to check. At this time the teacher controls the procedure more than it is in the pseudo-random test discussed above. Moreover, s/he tries to delete every fifth or sixth word, but does it rather carefully not to distort the meaning and mislead the learner. Besides, a significant factor in this type of testing is that the teacher removes exactly the main words that are supposed to be checked, i.e.:

Britain…….a deceptively large island and ……surrounded by some very beautiful coastline. The south of England has popular sandy beaches, especially in the west. But the coast in the south west Wales…..a unique coastal National Park. Its beaches…… great for sunbathing and the rock pools and cliffs ……..havens for wildlife. Up in Scotland, the striking white beaches of the west coast and islands……excellent places for explorative walks.

(Discovering Britain, Pavlockij B. M., 2000)

It is evident that the teacher’s aim by the help of the rational cloze test is to check the students’ knowledge of the Present simple of the verb “to be”. Thereof, the cloze tests could be successfully used for testing grammar, as well.

We have come again to the point when we are going to mention the advantages and disadvantages of cloze and gap-filling testing coined by Weir. Regarding Weir, there are more disadvantages than advantages in applying the cloze tests. He says that to design a cloze test is fairly easy, and they are easy to evaluate, and it is the best means to check reading comprehension. Concerning the drawbacks, we can emphasise that randomly removed words usually will act as distractors and will not be of true importance for the students to comprehend a message if, for example, it is a reading task.

Compared to the cloze test, gap filling is more material based, for it checks the students’ knowledge of a particular topic. Therefore, we can speak about the first advantage that is the learners will know exactly what they should insert. Moreover, the selectively deleted items allow focusing exactly on them and do not confuse the student.

The last what could be said about gap filling tests is that this technique limits us to check only a certain language skill, e.g. a vocabulary on different topics.