IELTS Research Reports

An empirical investigation of the process of writing Academic Readingtest items for the International English Language Testing SystemThe three were asked to sketch flowcharts of the ways they had located, edited and prepared items fortheir IELTS reading tests, after which they were invited in turn to explain their flowcharts (see Table3). It was intended in the design of the study that this activity would provide internal triangulationfor the findings of the previous discussion by the participants of their experience in selecting andcharacterising an appropriate IELTS academic reading text, editing and adapting for testing purposes.This proved indeed to be the case. The main points made by the three participants in their discussionsof their flowchart are summarised in Table 3 under the headings: text search, editing and item writing,with a final question on their preferred items. The table should be read both for the similarities and forthe differences in the processes engaged in across the three participants.Text searchVictoria Mathilda Mary5-6 step flowchart (Victoria thinksnow there are more steps than in herflowchart)1. task familiarisation2. topic selection (based onknowledge from past papers,website, course books)5-main steps in flowchart1. looking at sample IELTS texts2. browsing for a suitable text3. selection of text from shortlist4. text adaptation6-step flowchart:1. task assessment,2. background research3. text search and rejection4. text decision and editing3. begin task to determinesuitability4. research topic to test credibilityand usefulness of text5. satisfied with text6. editing text for cohesion andtext typeGoogled neuro-linguistic programming(NLP) and other potential topics >decided on topic of content of dreams> refining down topic > sub-topicswithin dreams > other articles > alsopossible choices? > so settled on thedreams text > tried items out on her EL1partner; ‘apparently NS do really badlyon IELTS reading’5. selecting parts of text to targetand writing questions / tasksbased on the example of thesample testsUsed practice IELTS tests (and her ownexperience as a candidate)Googled scientific magazines first‘then within the magazines I lookedfor specific things’… ‘you get articlesrelated to it then do a search on wordsrelated to it’Text editingVictoria Mathilda MaryBelieves in significant ‘fixing up process’on textMathilda made hardly any changes:about 3 words5. text review6. item writing and text adjustingUsed IELTS Express, Impact IELTS,past papers, old IELTS copies (Internet)searched under variety of topics, ‘try torefine, refine, refine’ e.g. science andnature, down to robots, ‘using more andmore refined words in order to be ableto find an article that would be suitable ‘tested text and items on friendText editing can mean: ‘changing textstructure, paragraphing, cohesion’Did various things to make the textmore academic: took out by-line,added more research-type ‘rigour’ (e.g.evidence-based), more hedgingDidn’t want to change text too muchbut one person’s ‘changing a lot’ notanother’s?Different texts need different amount ofchanging; editing is relativeIs text editing for the sake of the tasks,changing text to fit a task type …. avalidity issue?IELTS Research Reports Volume 11281