How to Develop a

Good Test?
According to the book
“Testing from theory to practice” by Farhadi et al.

Gathered by Mojtaba Abiri

Nahid Language Institute

January 2009
 By Mojtaba Abiri [HOW TO DEVELOP A GOOD TEST ?]

How to develop a good test?

One of the concerns of teachers is how to develop a good test. In fact process of test
making is not just wri'ng a set of ques'ons. Wri'ng a set of ques'ons is one of 6 stages
that you need to do in order to have a goal specified exam.

Steps of developing a test

1. Determining the func.on and the form

2. Planning
3. Preparing the items
4. Reviewing the items
5. Pretes.ng the items
6. Valida.ng the items

1. Determining the func.on and the form

When we say determining the function of a test we mean the purpose for which a test is
developed. In other words, in this step you determine the goal of our test. But, how many
purposes may we have? There are two major functions for tests.

1. Prognostic
a. Placement
b. Selection
c. Aptitude
2. Evaluation of attainment
a. Achievement
b. Proficiency
c. Knowledge

What do Prognostic and Evaluation of attainment mean? In prognostic function

questions are not directly related to a particular course of instruction. Placement tests are
the most famous tests in this group. In tests with the function of evaluation of
attainment, questions are based on a clearly specified course of instruction. In other
words they are more related to educational settings. The most famous test in this group is
TOFEL, in which it matters how good did you learn English. Now we are going to have a
brief explanation for each of above functions.

Placement: These tests are used to determine the most appropriate channel of education
for the examinee. e.g. Placement tests which you have to pass when you want to
participate in an Interchange course.

Selection: The purpose of these tests is to provide information upon which the
examinee’s acceptance or non-acceptance into a particular program can be determined.
In this purpose we have some accepted examinees and some failed examinees also. e.g.
test of driver’s license

Aptitude: These tests are used to predict applicants success in achieving certain
objectives in the future. e.g. some psychological tests that show which language would be
easier for one to learn.
 By Mojtaba Abiri [HOW TO DEVELOP A GOOD TEST ?]

Achievement: These tests are designed to measure the degree of students learning from
a particular set of instructional materials. e.g. final exams at schools

Proficiency: Proficiency tests are used to measure the over all ability of learners. e.g.
TOFEL

Knowledge: In these cases, the second language is used as the language of the tests to
measure the examinees knowledge in areas other than the language itself. e.g. attest of
chemistry in English.

After reviewing the function it’s time to ask what is the form of a test? Different forms of
a test consist of True-false items, Matching items, Multiple-choice items, Filing the
blanks and essay type questions. More information about each form will be explained in
the following parts.

2. Planning

In this part you need to consider two points: 1- decide on the area of knowledge to be
measured and 2- specify the relative importance of the elements to be included in the
test.
You may say “OK! We would consider these two points. Then what ‘s the action?” You
are right. The practical part starts here. The first thing you need to do is to outline the
course content. If you have taught “Interchange 1” unit 1 you need to outline the content
e.g. grammar like this:

Simple Present

Subject pronouns

Possessive adjectives

The next thing you need to do divide them into specific components.

Wh-questions with be

Questions: what, where, who and how

Yes/no questions and short answers with be

Subject pronouns (I ,you, he, she ,it, we, you, they)

Possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their)

Then prepare your table of content.

Area Number Form

Wh-questions with be 3 T/F
Questions: what, where, who and how 2 Filling the blanks
Yes/no questions and short answers with be 1 Filling the blanks
Subject pronouns (I ,you, he, she ,it, we, you, they) 4 Multiple-choice
Possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, your, 5 Matching
their)
 By Mojtaba Abiri [HOW TO DEVELOP A GOOD TEST ?]

Now you know what to do and how many questions do you need and also their form for
the next level i.e. preparing the items.

3. Preparing the items

In this part you are going to read some points to be considered in making different tests.

True-false items:

True-false items are technically called alternative response because they have only two
answers. This kind of item is no highly recommended to use in a large scale because of
two reasons:

(I) They are very dependant on chance, namely the examinee has 50 percent of
probability of success.

(II) They are limited to measuring simple learning activities

In true-false items pay attention to these points:

1. Avoid using broad general sentences. General sentences are usually correct.
2. Avoid using students which measures trivial point. They are also usually correct.
3. Avoid using negative sentences. If you want to do so capitalize the negative word.
4. Avoid using long and complex sentences.
5. Make them of similar length, difficulty and distribu'on.

Matching items:

Matching items are usually used for measuring facts based on simple associations. In
language testing, one of the uses of matching items is to check the students’ ability in
recognizing and comprehending synonyms and antonyms.

In matching items:

1. Use homogenous materials in a single matching item. If your question is about

vocabulary of foods, do not enter any other word like car.
2. Include an unequal number of items in each column. If you have 5 objects in the right
column, include 8 objects in the left column.
3. Clarify the way they should be connected.
4. Keep the list brief and put the shorter column on the right.

A sample matching test is like this

 By Mojtaba Abiri [HOW TO DEVELOP A GOOD TEST ?]

Write the choice with the opposite meaning in the blank.

a. beautiful ……. dirty

b. big ……. expensive

c. cheep ……. peaceful

d. clean ……. ugly

e. crowded

Multiple-Choice items:
Speaking technically these kind of items have two parts; the stem and alternatives. The
alternatives consist of two parts; distracters and the correct answer.

John …… to school every day. stem

a) go
b) going distracter alternatives
c) to go
d) goes correct answer

In developing a multiple-choice pay attention to these points.

1. The stem should be quite clear and state the point to be stated unambiguously.

2. The stem should include as mush of items as possible. Pay aLen'on to this example.

John …….. a new car these days.

a) has bought
b) has been bought
c) has been buying
d) has to buy

In this example we should put the word “has” in the stem.

3. Nega've statements should be avoided because they are likely to be ignored. If you
want to use them make the negative word bold and underlined.

e.g. Which sentence does NOT belong to the paragraph?

…..

4. All the alterna'ves must be gramma'cally correct by themselves and consistent with
the stem.

5. Every item should have one correct or clearly best answer.

6. All distracters should be plausible.

 By Mojtaba Abiri [HOW TO DEVELOP A GOOD TEST ?]

7. All distracters should be of similar length and level of difficulty.

8. Using “all the above” and “none of above” is not recommended.

9. Correct responses should be distributed approximately equally but randomly, because

there shouldn’t be a pattern in arrangement of the correct answers.

10. The stem should not provide any gramma'cal clue.

e.g. I want to buy an ………. for winter.

a) sweater b) coat c) umbrella d) hat

11. The stem should not be started with a blank.

e.g. …………… is the central political city of each country.
a) province b)village c)capital d)suburb

4. Previewing the items

As everybody is exposed to some mistakes, reviewing the tests by one or more teachers
can reduce the rate of mistakes. In this part, the set of prepared test is given to another
teacher to check for possible mistakes and if needed the questions can be corrected.

5. Pretes.ng the items

In this part questions should be tested on a small group of students and analyzed for the
goals they have achieved.

6. Valida.ng the items

After analyzing the results of the test, some defective items should be adjusted for the
purpose of the test.

Layout of a test paper

Before developing your test, pay attention to the characters tics of your examinees. If
your examinees are young children, you need to have more pictorial items. Avoid
designing messy papers. If they are adults or young adults try to use a neat and catchy
design and friendly fonts such as Calibri, Arial or Times New Roman. Examinees should
feel comfortable with the layout of paper.