IELTS Research Reports

Tim Moore, Janne Morton and Steve PriceENGINEERING: The exam is basically about testing students’ understanding of key ideasand terms. As preparation for the exam [students] would need to look at the PowerPointslides of the lectures and reread the relevant sections of the textbook.Among the items set on the exam/test papers was a sizeable proportion requiring a mainly ‘local –literal’ engagement with material. These included ‘Short answer’ questions, very much in the veinof the ‘study’-type questions discussed in the previous section – that is, questions requiring shortsummaries of key concepts and ideas. Samples of such question-types are shown below (A7-10).What assumption about ‘savings behaviour’ is made by the Solow Swan model?Sample A7. Short answer exam question – EconomicsBriefly explain Fukuyama’s End of History thesis.Sample A8. Short answer exam question – HistoryWhat is meant by the concept of ‘value configuration’?Sample A9. Short answer exam question – Business StudiesWhat is the hypodermic model of media effects?Sample A10. Short answer exam question – Media StudiesAlso used in the exam/test samples collected were a range of more objective, ‘closed’ formats. Themost common of these was Multiple Choice; True/False, and Gap Fill formats were also noted.Examples from the corpus of each of these formats are shown below:An etic description of a cultural practice:A. reflects the culture member’s own understandingB. focuses on sound differencesC. takes an outsider’s perspectiveD. requires a prolonged engagement and “going native”Sample A11. Multiple choice question - LinguisticsThe statements A-D are either correct or incorrect. Record whether the statement is Correct byentering 11 or Incorrect by entering 12.A The binomial name of a species is by convention printed in italicsB. Phylogeny is the study of the life cycle of an organismC. Slime moulds get their name from the mucilage trains they leave behindD. Diatoms and dinoflagellates are important photosynthetic plankton contributing greatly to theproductivity of the oceans.Sample A12. True/False question - Biology232 www.ielts.org