There are different types of transactional letters, such as a letter of complaint, a letter of invitation, a letter asking for information and a letter describing something. The task requiring the students ability to write these letters will supply the students with necessary information, may be even pictures, and usually will ask for the students’ personal opinion. Moreover, the students have to be aware of the style that should be used depending on the requirements. Furthermore, the students will have to know how the letters are structured, for it will be the factor that will be evaluated as well.
Another writing task such as writing articles for a magazine will require the students to display their writing abilities, the knowledge of the vocabulary, the style and letter organization knowledge (examples available in Appendix 38).
Writing a report will be based on the students’ capability to gather facts and analyse them. It could involve a kind of a research work and knowledge how to express and link the ideas together (examples available in Appendix 30).
Writing a narrative story will ask the creativity from the students to make it interesting and original. Again the students will have to be able to express and link their ideas to produce a meaningful text.
Opinion composition will involve the students’ abilities to state advantages and disadvantages of the topic being discussed, expressing own opinion, stating the problem and possible solutions of it and expansion on the topic analysing various aspects of a topic.
Another writing task could be a book review. The students will have to know how to plan and organize the review, giving brief information about an author and some essential details about a book. Moreover, personal opinion of the students will be required as well.
Thus, looking at the facts stated above we can declare that the writing part of CFC is purely integrative type of test, for it involves all possible written tasks and strategies that should be used to accomplish the tasks effectively. Furthermore, it will be a direct testing aimed at testing the students’ writing skills. The tasks and activities presented in this part of CFC reflect the students’ needs they may meet in a real-life situation, for every possible writing piece is given.
The writing part of TOEFL test will generally involve essay writing. There will not be any letters or book reviews. The students will be given a topic that is typically a statement and they will have to expand it and write about it giving the facts, ideas and sometimes even a personal opinion, i.e.: “ If the earth to be saved from environmental catastrophe, we shall all have to make major changes in our lifestyles” (Gear, Cambridge preparation for the TOEFL test, 1996). This type of writing will focus on expressing ideas and their linking as well. To write a good essay the students will require the knowledge of the topic, or schemata, the knowledge of a relevant vocabulary, appropriate style and organization of the written text, i.e. thesis sentence, paragraphs, etc (examples available in Appendix p. 377 – 378).
Therefore, we can conclude that the writing part of TOEFL test could be called also an integrative type of test involving the range of strategies. Moreover, it could be defined as direct testing, for it implies testing exactly the writing skill. Furthermore, it is totally based on the knowledge how to organize an essay with all necessary paragraphs, introductions and conclusions.
Use of English or Structure and Written Expressions
An import role in both tests is occupied by use of English or as it is called in TOEFL Structure and Written Expressions part. It aims at testing the students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary used in the English language.
CFC offers the students a range of various activities and task to be done during the testing time. They are multiple choice cloze, open cloze, key word transformations, error correction and word formation. Whereas, the usual procedure of the same part in TOEFL test will mostly include multiple-choice cloze and error correction.
The multiple choice cloze in CFC will usually be in the form of a gapped text followed by fifteen multiple questions with four options, as always the only one will be the correct. It will mostly be concerned with vocabulary items or grammar issues (examples available in Appendix p.44). For example:
Robin Williams was creative and gifted from an early age. He was a/an (1)_______________child and at school was always a (2)_____________pupil: he wrestled, ran cross-country and worked (3)_____________at his studies.
1. A imaginary B imaginative C fantastic D mythical
2. A classic B model C superior D spoilt
3. A quickly B easily C hard D fast
Prodromou, First Certificate Star, 1998
Open cloze will mostly be presented in the form of a text with several spaces, which the students will have to complete with an appropriate word. It will imply the students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and will involve the students’ ability to predict and guess from the context (examples available in Appendix p.94). The task will be rather complicated, for it will not be a C-test type where the words to be inserted preserve the initial letter or letters to make the guessing process easier. In our case the students will have to know how the words and phrases are connected together, how the sentences are linked, and they will have to know the grammar forms and structures, so, for example, if they see have/has, they should immediately know that Present perfect is used. For example:
When you join the International Bird Society, your membership (1)_____________ make a positive difference to birds everywhere – even if the only ones you see are the blue tits…..
Prodromou, First Certificate Star, 1998
Key word transformations will make the students alter the sentences structures, however preserving the entire meaning of them. They will have to complete a sentence with a given word; here the vocabulary and grammar will be of major interest again (examples available in Appendix p.86). The usual change will occur with phrasal verbs, active and passive voice, verbs and prepositions that go together, etc.:
1. I didn’t like the story and I didn’t like the actors. neither
I ______________________the actors.
Prodromou, First Certificate Star, 1998
Error correction will implement the students’ knowledge of grammar structures. The students will receive a passage in which they will have to find incorrect item and highlight it (examples available in Appendix p.55). Such types of activities will usually include an extra or unnecessary word. These words could be relative pronouns, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc. For example:
________ If you want to find out about someone’s personality, one way of to do it is to
________take a sample of their handwriting and analyse it; this is called by
________graphology. To do graphology properly, it is important to use fairly typical…..
Prodromou, First Certificate Star, 1998
Word formation will based on completing a text by making an appropriate word form from a word stem given, i.e. discover – discovery (examples available in Appendix p.104). This part will focus mainly on vocabulary, especially on word formation rules. Here the knowledge of suffixes and prefixes will be essential for the students. For example:
Who is mad? Cows or farmers?
Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis is a (1)___________ brain DEAD
Disorder found amongst cows. As this medical term is almost
(2) _________for the majority of ordinary people to say, the illness POSSIBLE
is (3)________known as Mad Cow Disease. POPULAR
Prodromou, First Certificate Star, 1998
Concerning TOEFL test, we might say that it is similar to CFC use of English; however, it displays just several types of tasks. As we have already mentioned they are error correction and multiple choice cloze. Multiple choice cloze typically consists of a range of statements in which there will be a certain grammar structure missing. It is usually based on grammar, than on vocabulary (examples available in Appendix p. 385 – 386). The students will have to know how the subject and predicate go together, how the words and sentence parts are linked with each other. For example:
1. --------infinitely large number of undiscovered galaxies.
(A) An
(B) There are an
(C) From an
(D) Since there are
Gear, Cambridge preparation for the TOEFL test, 1996
Error correction will differ from that in CFC, for in TOEFL test we will have a statement with the underlined words that are supposed to be wrong. The students will have to choose the correct variant (examples available in Appendix p. 387 – 390). It will usually be based on the students’ knowledge of grammar items and word formation as well. For example:
Drying food by means of solar energy is ancient process applied wherever food and climate conditions
A B C D
make it possible.
Gear, Cambridge preparation for the TOEFL test, 1996
In conclusion we can state that Use of English is both discreet and integrative type of testing, for in some tasks of CFC the knowledge of word formation is demanded, but in some grammar will be included either.
The Use of English of CFC and TOEFL will be a direct testing, for it will test the students’ grammar and vocabulary knowledge.
Speaking
Speaking is another part of the test that is present in CFC and is not included into TOEFL test. It could be explained by the fact that if the student passes TOEFL test successfully, s/he will be interviewed directly at the place s/he needed the test for.
Therefore, will briefly look at CFC speaking part and discuss it. It aims at the students’ ability to use spoken language effectively in different types of interaction. The students could be asked to give personal information, talk about pictures and photographs, be involved in pair work task or even in discussion.
In personal information part the students could be asked to supply the personal details about themselves: i.e. their job, family position, studies, etc.( examples available in Appendix 10 – 11).
In describing pictures or photographs they will have to share their opinion about them speaking with an examiner. There will be a time limit set for the talk.
In pair work task and discussion the students will be supplied either by pictures or photos or by charts and diagrams. They will be joined in pairs and will have to carry out the task together. It could be either the solving the problem, planning something, putting something in order or discussing a certain topic. Discussion will certainly require the students’ personal opinion and analysis of a topic (examples available in Appendix 63).
In CFC the students will have to cooperate with another interlocutor: either the examiner or another participant.
The author of the paper assume that this part is both integrative and indirect testing. It is integrative, for it will involve the students’ knowledge of the whole aspects of the language: grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, listening skills and may be even reading skills if the task will be written. To communicate successfully the students will require listening and comprehending the other speaker’s message to respond. Grammar should be accurate to produce a good and correct dialogue or a monologue, for accuracy is an important factor there. The rich word stock will be inevitable element as well.
Indirect testing means that the whole material will be included while testing speaking skills.
To conclude we can declare that CFC and TOEFL tests are both integrative and discreet point tests. They are also direct, however, speaking part in CFC could be defined as indirect one involving all four skills to be used.
Conclusions
The present research attempted to investigate the essence of two types of tests, such as TOEFL and CFC tests. The research has achieved the initially set goals and objectives. It dealt with the basic data about testing, where the author had displayed the ideas what was the essence of tests, why the students should be tested, what consequences could tests produce and whom they would mostly influence. Afterwards, the reasons for testing were discussed, where the author of the paper had gradually showed why tests were significant in the process of learning and the role of testing in the teaching process. After the basic data had been discussed, the author came directly to types of testing. At that point the author of the research made an attempt to review various sources on the topic she was able to find. She had presented the definitions of the types of tests offered in Longman dictionary of LTAL and then had compared them with the definitions given by various authors. Later, the author of the research displayed the ways of their applications and reasons for that. She had also presented several examples of tests types in the Appendix. The author of the paper had also discussed ways of testing, such as discrete point test and integrative test, objective and subjective tests, direct and indirect tests, etc. The attention was drawn to the significance of their usage and the purpose for it. Furthermore, the discussion had changed the focus on another important issue, such as tests formats and approaches for testing four language skills. Here the author had broadly and explicitly discussed and analysed the tests formats, such as MCQs, false/true items, cloze tests, gap-filling tests, etc. She had focused on their application and skills for which they are used. Moreover, she had displayed various examples to exemplify each test format, offering several of them in Appendix of the paper. Likewise, a table with the language skills and test formats applicable for them was attached to the work as well. Further, a practical part in the form of the tests’ analysis was presented.
The author of the paper had also dealt with the main issues that are very vital and essential in analysis of the tests. She had focused on the reliability and validity of the tests and tried to trace them in TOEFL and CFC tests. She had thoroughly discussed the tasks and activities composing the tests designed to test the students’ language skills. Moreover, she had attempted to compare the two tests and find out any similarities and differences between them. She had methodically studied each part of the tests, starting from reading skills finishing with speaking. She had presented a detailed investigation into the matter together with the examples that could be observed in Appendix, as well.
Eventually, she had gained her aim having checked the theory into practice and had proved that it really functioned in the real world. Moreover, she had revealed that though being sometimes different in their purpose, design and structure, the TOEFL test and CFC test are constructed according to the universally accepted pattern.
Thus, the hypothesis of the present research has been confirmed.
Theses
1. The role of tests is very useful and important, especially in language learning, for they indicates how much the learners have learnt during a course, as well as display the strength and weaknesses of the teaching process and help the teacher improve it.
2. The tests can facilitate the students’ acquisition process and function as a tool to increase their motivation; however, too much of testing could be disastrous changing entirely the students’ attitude towards learning the language, especially if the results are usually dissatisfying.
3. Assessment and evaluation are important aspects for the teacher and the students and should be correlated in order to make evaluation and assessment “go hand in hand”.
4. The test should be valid and reliable. They should test what was taught, taking the learner’s individual pace into account. Moreover, the instructions of the test should be unambiguous.
5. Validity deals with what is tested and degree to which a test measures what is supposed to measure.
6. Reliability shows that the test’s results will be similar and will not change if one and the same test will be given on various days.
7. There are four traditional categories or types of tests: proficiency tests measuring how much of a language a person knows or has learnt; achievement tests measuring a language someone has learned during a specific course, study or program; diagnostic tests displaying the knowledge of the students or lack of it, and placement tests placing the students at an appropriate level in a programme or a course.
8. There are two important aspect direct and indirect testing. Direct testing means the involvement of a skill that is supposed to be tested, whereas indirect testing tests the usage of the language in real-life situation and is assumed to be more effective.
9. Discrete point test is a language test that is meant to test a particular language item, whereas the integrative test intends to check several language skills and language components together or simultaneously.