IELTS Research Reports

Anthony Green and Roger HawkeyTaskTypesType 8Type 9Identification ofWriter’s Views/Claimsor of Information ina TextClassificationVictoria Mathilda Mary Jane Anne William Elizabeth√ √ √ √ √Type 10 Matching √ √Table 9. Task types (based on list given at www.ielts.org) selected by each item writerThe most popular task type, chosen by six of the eight writers, was Identification of Writer’s Views/Claims or of Information in a Text or True/ False/ Not Given (T/F/NG). It is clear from the focus groupdiscussions that this is seen by the experienced writers as a flexible and relatively straightforwardtask type to work with. In the following section we analyse the writers’ items in some detail, drawingon Macmillan’s (2007) typology of lexical relationships between texts and items, to explore howitems are used and how the two groups interpreted the requirements. In this case, we begin with theexperienced writers’ items.Jane was the only one of the experienced writers whose T/F/NG items were edited at the meeting.The comments and revisions made provide insight into the experienced writers’ conception of thisitem type.Jane’s only False item (item 1) relies on antonymy. The location of the necessary information is clearlysignalled by the repetition of ‘programmed’ and ‘data’ in the item while ‘random intervals’ in the stemis contrasted with ‘scheduled intervals’ in the text. However, the editing team objected to the openendedreference of ‘wildlife experiments’ and were unable to find a satisfactory alternative. As a resultthey chose to reject the item. A replacement item was written and added to the end of the set during theediting meeting and is discussed below.Item 2 (True) is also clearly signalled (through the repetition of ‘chance’ and ‘species’) and involveslexical repetition: ‘the chances are very low’ (item): ‘there is little chance’ (text); ‘the target species’(item): ‘the species being investigated’ (text); and synonymy: ‘the equipment used will capture’:‘recording an occurrence’. The phrase ‘some cameras’ in item 5 (True) matches ‘some wildlifecameras’ in the text and the item paraphrases a single sentence from the text.In item 3 (Not Given), the location of the necessary information might seem to be most clearly cued bythe similarity between ‘field studies’ in the stem and ‘fieldwork’ in the text, although this is probablynot the intended location as ‘fieldwork’ occurs in the opening line and items of this type usually followthe sequence of the text. The word ‘experts’ in the stem repeats ‘expert’ in the first paragraph, althoughthis word occurs twice more in the text. The repetition of ‘species’ might serve to limit the search, butalso cues the previous item and so might be thought to jeopardise item independence.Assuming that it is the occurrence of ‘expert’ in the first paragraph that is intended, the successful testtaker would need to recognise either that there is no mention of either experts or cameras examining‘the different species’ or that the ‘insufficient’ number of ‘experts’ mentioned in the stem is notsuggested as a reason for sifting the field data. It may be, however, that this is a plausible inference.318 www.ielts.org