IELTS Research Reports

Tim Moore, Janne Morton and Steve PriceType 5: Multiple choiceAbout 10% of items in the corpus used a standard multiple choice format, with almost all relying ona 4-option structure. For all items, test-takers were required to select a single ‘correct’ option. Sample5.1 shows a range of multiple choice items related to a passage about the development of cinema.Question 10-13Choose the correct letter A, B, C, D.Write the correct letter in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.10 When cinema first began, people thought thatA it would always tell storiesB it should be used in fairgroundsC its audiences were unappreciativeD its future was uncertain.11 The writer refers to the film of the train in order to demonstrateA the simplicity of early filmsB the impact of early filmsC how short early films wereD how imaginative early films were12 What is the best title for this passage?A The rise of the cinema starB Cinema and novels comparedC The domination of HollywoodD The power of the big screenSample 5.1: Multiple choice sampleLevel of engagementThe Multiple choice task format in the IELTS corpus was found to be distinctive for implying noparticular level of engagement with text. This is in contrast with the other task types considered so far.Thus, we saw for example that the True/False/Not given format was linked to engagement at a mainlysentential level; similarly the principal unit of analysis in Section-summary match was seen to be theparagraph. No such generalisation could be made however, for the multiple choice tasks in the corpus,with different items probing quite different levels of text. This is evident in the sample items above.In Item 10, for example, shown with the relevant section from the associated reading passage, therequired engagement is at a more ‘local’, propositional level. (Correct response = D)10 When cinema first began, people thought thatA it would always tell storiesB it should be used in fairgroundsC its audiences were unappreciativeD its future was uncertain.216 www.ielts.org