Introduction Students resume schooling again after a long summer holidays, finally.

What they expect from the new academic year? New classroom, new knowledge, and new teachers are all exciting to them. It is good enough for new teacher and students to get acquaintance from the beginning of the school year before starting to work through all the year. A test should be prepared by the teacher having done by the students, first in order to review what they learned from the former grade, second for the teacher to make a distinction with which he or she is going work. Test description The new class is at grade 8 from secondary school which the students are going to have their knowledge and skills in English consolidated and developed from what having been introduced from grade 6 and 7. There are numerous aspects in English for both teacher and students to take a look back prior to the new ones to be discovered. For instant, initial knowledge in vocabulary and grammar should be reinforced otherwise they would not put those essential language skills into practice from what the comprehension ready for utilization. Therefore, the test for the new eight-graders to do is concentrated on both vocabulary and grammar. The students have to finish the test in fifteen minutes for ten multiple choice questions. Each correct answer will get one point, ten points for all ten correct selections; the wrong one obtains none. There are results of the test being shown in these following tables. They are 1a and 1b which the scores which the students having got are shown firstly to the readers in table 1a by their name listed alphabetically.
No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 11 10 9 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Last Name Trn th M Hynh th Hng L Tn Nguyn Ngc Nguyn Hang Trn Ch Thi Hang V Tuyt L th Cm Nguyn th Kim Nguyn Yn L Tn Nguyn Thanh Ng Duy Nguyn Hang Nguyn th Hai Mai th B Ng th Thanh Trn Thanh H Khnh Name DUYN O T LAN LINH LINH LONG MAI NGN NGN NHI SANG SN TN THIN THNG THUY TRC VINH VY Scores 4 10 10 9 8 6 9 3 8 7 4 7 8 2 7 2 8 8 6 10 Tally 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Table 1: List of students names and scores alphabetically The above table demonstrates the numbers of the correct answers each student has got from their work. Next to this, table 1b is following to illustrate the scores which being clustered into groups from the highest scores to the lowest ones in accordance with the tally column. 1

No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Last Name H Khnh L Tn Hynh th Hng Thi Hang Nguyn Ngc Ng th Thanh Mai th B Nguyn Thanh L th Cm Nguyn Hang Nguyn Hang L Tn Nguyn th Kim Trn Thanh Trn Ch Nguyn Yn Trn th M V Tuyt Nguyn th Hai Ng Duy

Name VY T O LONG LAN TRC THUY SN NGN LINH THIN SANG NGN VINH LINH NHI DUYN MAI THNG TN

Scores 10 10 10 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 4 4 3 2 2

Tally /// (3)

10

// (2) ///// (5)

/// (3)

// (2) // (2) / (1) // (2)

Table 1b: Tallies making Test item analysis The teacher/test writer is now having the raw consequence in hand ready for assessment what the students have in their luggage and how they make use of those they are bearing inside to keep on their trip in learning eight-grade English. The clearer picture the easier approach to identify at which stage the teacher/test writer should comprehend the long way through the year in realizing the raw material above into a graph from which shows the distribution of students test result.
Distribution of Students' Test Result
6 5 Number of SS 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Scores Frequency

Distribution of students test result graph From the above graph, readers can easily recognize that most students get the scores of 7, 8, and 10 with the figure of the eight point recognition for it seems ideally convincible by five 2

from the twenty of students reaching this. As a result, the scores could be measured for central tendency values in another table for central tendency measurement from which average score could be defined for consideration.
Scores (X) 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 Frequency (X) 2 1 2 2 3 5 2 3 Total 4 3 8 12 21 40 18 30 = 136 / 20

Table 2: Measures of central tendency According to this table, main values as Mode, Mean, and Median can be accounted like this: Mode = 8 this is the score which most of the students get; Median, the average score between the 10th and 11th student is 7.5 Based on these values, it could be considered that mean and median values are similar because this score is affected by the score of 7 (3 students get it) and 10 (3 students, too). Therefore, this appears that the test is not too difficult for most students. In addition, the range of scores can be accounted like this (10 2 = 8). 8 is quite large. It proves that the students are heterogeneous or a mix-ability group. On the other hand, the class can be divided into 2 groups: the upper and the lower someone that the teacher/test writer can analyze and compare the item difficulty level (FV) and item discrimination level (D). This can be seen in table 3 below.

Items 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Upper group 10 9 10 5 9 10 9 8 10 8

Lower group

FV

D 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.4

Comments too easy too easy too easy (difficult) too easy

6 0.80 = 80% 5 0.70 = 70% 6 0.80 = 80% 3 0.40 = 40% 8 0.85 = 85% 3 0.65 = 65% 3 0.60 = 60% 3 0.55 = 55% 7 0.85 = 85% 4 0.60 = 60% Table 3: Summary of FV and D

too easy

From the above table, each item could be commented: Items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 9 are too easy for students. Items 6, 7, 8, and 10 have high discrimination with D = 0.4. Item 4 is difficult for students. Only 5 of them from upper group and 3 from lower group can do it. Consequently, item 5 and 9 should be replaced with difficult ones.

In order to carry out a full item analysis or an extended answer analysis. It should be made of the different chosen by each student in the upper group and then various options selected by the lower group. Extended answer analysis Item 4: The sun A. rises
Option A B C D Upper group 5 0 0 5

in the West. B. moves C. goes

D. sets
D

40%

0.2

According to this, while distractor A appears to be to be performing well. Most of the students choose A because they can not distinguish or remember the West and the East; it is clear that distractors B and C are attracting the poorer students, but none of the upper group students. Hence, they are not good distractors and the teacher/test writer should substitute them. For instance, option B (moves) can be replaced by raises, and option C (goes) should be replaced by falls. In conclusion, this test is too easy for students; it is not good for discrimination. Hence, the teacher/test writer should replace some too easy items such as 5 and 9. Besides, the order of all items should be re-arranged. For example, first go items like 1, 2, and 3 then come 6, 7, 8, and 10, and two last ones are the new difficult items instead of the 5 and 9. Consequently, in the next test, the items should be designed orderly with at least three easy items, next three not too difficult ones, then three a bit difficult, and last one extremely difficult. - oOo -

Appendix
1. Test instruction + questions Name: Class: Date:

TEST FOR GRADE 8 Time: 15 minutes

1. Baseball is different ____________ soccer. A. from A. enjoys A. bathroom A. rises A. go A. cafeteria A. generous A. doctor A. is visiting A. comes B. for B. enjoy B. living room B. moves B. will go B. library B. reserved B. teacher B visits B. is coming C. which C. will enjoy C. kitchen C. goes C. went C. stadium C. humorous C. journalist C. visited C. come D. of D.is enjoying D. bedroom D. sets D. is going D. museum D. sociable D. farmer D. visit D. will come. 2. I think she ____________ the party tomorrow 3. The family usually sits and watches television in the ____________ 4. The sun _________ in the west. 5. She _________ to Hanoi last week. 6. We go to the ____________ to read books. 7. My friend is very _________. He always tells jokes in class.

8. A ________ works on the farm.

9. Hoa _________ her grandparents yesterday.

10. Look! The teacher ________ to our class.

THE END GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

2. Suggested answer key

3. Suggested marking scheme

GROUPS TASK ASSIGNMENT