This paper reports on a qualitative research study into the test-taking strategies employed in completing two picture prompt writing tasks--Situational Writing and Interpretational Writing in the Beijing Matriculation English Test. Think-aloud and retrospective interview protocols were collected from twelve Chinese students representing two key…

"Test preparation" activities can range from simple practice to in-depth instruction, but most of these activities use some form of test familiarization, drill and practice with feedback, training in strategies for specific item types, and general test-taking, subject-matter review, and skill development exercises. Two experiments were…

This study reexamines results reported by Angoff and Schrader regarding formula directions and rights directions for standardized tests. In that study, it was concluded that the two scoring directions were essentially equivalent. In this study, methodological concerns are discussed and additional data analyses undertaken. Among various…

The objective of this study was to investigate differential tendencies to avoid guessing as a function of three variables: (1) lingual-cultural-group; (2) gender; and (3) examination year. The Psychometric Entrance Test (PET) for universities in Israel was used, which is administered in Hebrew, Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Russian. The…