This document describes a reading assessment test designed to place new students in an English language program at one of five proficiency levels. The test has three sections to evaluate different reading skills - expeditious, careful reading, and information transfer - within a 90 minute timeframe using paper and pencil. Validation will be determined by how accurately the test places students in the appropriate classes according to their teachers. The test aims to reliably and validly assess students' reading abilities for proper placement in the language program.

1. Assessment of language skills
Assessing reading
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2. Presented by:
Kiran Nazir

3. Statement of the problem
This test is designed for a commercial English language
teaching organization. Its purpose is to assign new
students to classes at five levels: false beginners, lower
intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced. This
tested is designed to check the reading skill of
students. It only tests the reading ability and does not
deal with any other language skill.

4. Conti….
This study envisioned to answer the following
specific questions:
1. At what level the new students should be placed?
2. What is the proficiency level in English of
students in reading?

5. Conti…..
The test must be not more than 90 minutes in length,
quick and easy to administer, score and interpret.
Scoring by teachers should be possible. Sufficient
accuracy and validity is required for the just placement
of students. Backwash is not a serious consideration for
it is a placement test.
Age: no specification (as for there is no age limitation
for language courses)
Medium: English (for non-native speakers)

6. Specifications
Content
Operations: based on the reading skills:
Expeditious reading: skim for main ideas, scan
to find specific items etc.
Slower, careful reading: construe the meaning of
complex closely argued passages.
Academic and personal reading i.e. newspapers,
articles etc.
Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar words from
context.
Information transfer: Graphic-cued, pictures,
shapes, labeling etc.

7. Specifications
Content
Type of text: authentic, from daily life, general and
extensive reading.
Topics: ‘everyday’ those found in the textbooks
used by organization.
Dialect and style: both British and American.
Mostly informal style, sometimes formal style.
Speed of processing: expeditious: 300 words per
minute (not reading all words)
Careful: 100 words per minute.

8. Structure, timing, medium and
techniques
Test structure: three sections: expeditious reading,
careful reading, graphic and contextual reading.
Number of items: 20 expeditious, 20 careful, 10
information transfer
Number of tasks: 2 expeditious: 1 article, 1 poem
2 careful: 1 passage, 1 sentence
ordering
2 information transfer: 2 pictures

9. Structure, timing, medium and
techniques
Timing: expeditious: 20 minutes per task (each task
collected after 20 minutes)
Information transfer: 10 minutes (handed
out after 40 minutes, when expeditious
reading has been completed)
Careful: 40 minutes (only handed out after
50 minutes, when expeditious reading and
information transfer have been completed)
TOTAL: 90 minutes
Medium: paper and pencil. Each task in a separate
booklet.
Techniques: short answers, MCQ’s and gap fillings.

10. Criterial level of performance:
Satisfactory performance is represented by 80
percent accuracy in all sections for placement in
advanced learners, 60 for upper intermediate and
40 for lower intermediate.

11. Validation
If one is honest, one may say that at this stage
content validity will be only a matter of academic
interest. Despite of it, this test has the greater
possible content validity. What will matter at this
level is whether the test does the job it is intended
for. Thus the most important form of validation will
be criterion-related, the criterion being placement
of students in appropriate classes, as judged by
their teachers (and possibly by the students
themselves). The smaller the proportion of
misplacements, the more valid the test is.

12. Test
Section 1 Expeditious Reading
Task No.1. Read out the following text quickly in
order to have general ideas of the contents and
choose the right answer.

13. Task1

14. Task No.2. . Read out the following poem quickly in or
der to have general ideas of the contents and answer t
he questions.

15. Task 2

16. Task 2
Suggest an appropriate title for the poem.
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Write down the main idea of the poem.
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
On which lines, poetess has used the metaphor of moon
and sun?
_____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
On line 24, the poetess is talking of being shot with what?
________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Write down a brief explanation of the lines 32-33.
________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

17. Section 2: Information transfer
Task No. 3. Mark the parts of newspaper with the
help of the options in the box below.

18. Task No.4. Label the picture with the number of the
corresponding item described below.
A. Wire supports extending from the hub of a wheel
to its perimeter
B. A long, narrow support pole between the seat
and the handlebars
C. A small, geared wheel concentric with the rear
wheel
D. A long, linked, flexible metal device that propel
the vehicle
E. A tough but somewhat flexible rubber item that
circles each wheel

19. Task 4

20. Section 3 Careful Reading
Task No.5. Read out the passage carefully and answer
the questions below.
The Hollywood sign in the hills that line the northern border
of Los Angeles is a famous landmark recognized over the
world. The white painted 50 foot high sheet metal letters can
be seen from great distance across the Los Angeles basin.
(Line 5) The sign was not constructed as one
might suppose, by the movie business as a means of
celebrating the importance of Hollywood to this industry,
instead, it was first constructed in 1923 as a mean of
advertising homes for sale 500-acre housing subdivision in a
part of Los Angeles called “Hollywood Land”. The sign that was
constructed at the time, of course said “Hollywood Land” over
the years, people begin referring to the area by the shortened
version “Hollywood” and after the sign and its sight were
donated to the city in 1945, the last four letters were removed.

21. Task 5
(Line 10) The sign suffered from years of
disrepair, and in 1973 it needed to be completely
replaced, at a cost of $27,700 per letter. Various
celebrities instrumental in helping to rise needed
funds. Rock star Ellis Coper, for example, bought an O
in memory of Groucho Marx, and Hugh Hefner of Play
boy fame held a benefit party to rise the money for
the wife. The construction of the new sign was finally
completed in 1978.

24. A. It was called “the last waltz”
B. It was a whistle tune
C. Peter was sitting in the room
D. The street was in total darkness
E. The sound was quite loud and clear
F. Because it was one he and Richard had learnt at
school
G. he looked outside
H. he recognized the tune
I. and it seemed deserted
J. he thought he heard something
Answer: ______________________
Task No.6. Put the following sentences in the correct
order.

25. Discussion
As required for a reading test, we have devised this
test into three sections: expeditious reading, careful
reading and information transfer. Each section has 2
tasks. The first section, expeditious reading section, is
designed to check the ability of skimming of the test
takers. Both the tasks of this section require the
students to read the text quickly and get the general
ideas. The second section, information transfer,
includes the testing of general reading abilities of
daily routine objects and tasks. The third section,
careful reading, tests the student’s ability to
understand the texts deeply and in contextual
settings.

26. Discussion
As the test is designed to assess reading
skills, it does not involve any other skill. Rather it only
tests reading skill through the methods that do not
challenge other tasks, as it is a requirement of the
test. The test is as much valid and reliable to place
the students at different levels. The test’s statements
are very clear and easy to understand. Scoring criteria
is also very clear and easy of this test.

27. Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that this test
maximizes the validity of placement of students for
a language course by assessing their reading skill.
The test assesses the reading ability of the students
quite justly and the methods used are also very
reliable.