Related Weblinks

Analyzing Items and Tasks

Let's spend some more time with that new TOEFL summarization task. Here is the full sample as given at the TOEFL website, linked above. In the actual test, you would not read what the 'Student' says – you would hear that.

• Sample Question #3 Script
  Text version: Reading/Listening/Speaking Situation
  
  Narrator: Number 3. You will now read a short passage and then listen to a talk on the same topic. You will then be asked a question about them. After you hear the question, you will have 30 seconds to prepare your response and 60 seconds to speak.
  Narrator: The administration at National University feels it needs to find a way for more people to be able to attend sporting events. Read the article from the university newspaper. You will have 45 seconds to read the article. Begin reading now.
  
  Reading time: 45 seconds
  
  New Stadium Plans
  The university has decided to accommodate more people at sporting events and is considering two alternative plans to accomplish this goal. One plan is to expand the current stadium, doubling it in size. The other plan is to build a new, larger stadium on the empty southern edge of the campus. The expansion of the current stadium would be by far the less expensive of the two alternatives.
  Narrator: Now listen to a student who is speaking at a student government meeting about the stadium plans.
  
  Student: I'm all for saving money, but money isn't everything. If you look at the area around the stadium, you'll see that expansion would cause the main street to be rerouted right around a main classroom building. Can you imagine the added noise? Also, they'll have to build where there are now student parking lots - and we barely have enough parking spaces as it is. And you know that it'll take up part of the large open area next to the Student Center and that's become a really popular place for students to hang out in good weather. This is what they should be worried about, not money.
  
  Narrator: The student expresses her opinion about one of the university's plans for a stadium. State her opinion and explain the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.
  
  Preparation time: 30 seconds
  Response time: 60 seconds

We discuss the concept of 'evidence' in our book, and often, the quest for evidence is like looking for grains of sand.

Analyze this sample task, above. Suppose that one test-taker – let's call this person Max – says this:

• Max: Well, the woman does not support the new stadium and is even angry at the possibility of a new stadium, because it means moving a road and that could create noise at classrooms. She also likes to visit her friends in the parking lot there at the stadium and if the stadium is enlarged then she cannot visit her friends there which seems like that is something she wants to do very much.

Now suppose another student – let's call her Emily – says this:

• Emily: What she says is really strange and somewhat baffling. The woman does not support the new stadium, and she seems most worried about the loss of the open areas, which would mean more noise because of that new road – I see that point, but hey, aren't universities noisy places by their very nature? Then here's what confuses me: the new construction would also mean she cannot hang out with her friends at the parking lot, because that lot would be lost. Why should the university change its plans because students like to hang out in a parking lot? Shouldn't the university give them a safe place to gather – like a student union or even a bowling alley or something?

So far as we understand, Max would get a higher score than Emily, because he simply summarized what the woman said without rendering his own opinion. The item is not supposed to generate evidence of one's own opinion, only evidence of summarization. Do you see how Emily's response might get a lower score than Max? What of the language competence illustrated both by Max and by Emily?

What evidence does this task elicit, and how does that evidence corroborate (or not) your view of the language tasks typically found in academic discourse?