Preface
I) Reasons for this study:
When a person hear the term evaluation, the first thought that often
comes to mind is tests or grades. Can you remember how you felt as a
young child waiting for the teacher to return a test paper from a difficult
examination? What about the sleepless nights before an important
examination in school or the wait for the postcard reporting a final grade?
Although the teacher gives many tests to measure how well the student
has attained the objectives and to assign his final grade, evaluation plays a
role in many other teacher’s dicisions. Before beginning instruction, teachers
often need to assess the students backgrounds or entry behavior to set the
appropriate level for instruction. During instruction it is sometimes
necessary to diagnose students’strength and weakness to discover why they
may be having difficulty in a particular subject. The teacher may have to
assess students attitudes about classroom procedures and perhaps change his
behavior to accommodate them. These are just a few of the reasons for
obtaining evaluation information. For teacher to evaluate properly they must
know what kind of judgements and decisions are called for and how to gather
information for their decisions.
II) Scope of the study:
From that point of view, I would like to present this paper which
covers only a small area of study, and focusses on two questions “what are
teacher-made tests?” and “how can the theory be applied to English tests?”.
some kinds of teacher - made tests 1
III. Methods of the study:
Three main methods have been applied, that is, synthesis, analysis and
illustration.
IV. References:
Making a good test has been a big challenge to any instructors and
they have made great contribution and studies in this area. Therefore I do not
want to create any thing new but sum up and learn from others’ experience:

time for the task. Many teachers use combinations of both types of tests,
since each has its own merits and limitations. A comparision of essay and
objective tests appear in the table below:
A comparision of essay and objective test:
Essay Objective.
Requires the student to express
himself in his own words, using
information from his own back
ground and knowledge.
Requires the student to
select correct answer from given
option, or to supply an anwer
limited to one word or phrase.
some kinds of teacher - made tests 4
Can tap high level of reasoning
such as requred in inference
organization of ideas, comparision
and contrast.
Can also tap high level of
reasoning such as reqired in
inference, organization of idea,
comparision and constrast.
Does not measure purely
factual information effectively.
Measures knowledge of fact
efficiently.
Covers only a limited field of
knowledge in any one test. Essay
questions take so long to answer that
relatively few can be answer in a

Permits teachers to comment
directly on the reasoning process of
Answers generally scored
only right or wrong, but scoring is
very accurate and consitent.
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