IELTS Research Reports

An empirical investigation of the process of writing Academic Readingtest items for the International English Language Testing Systemusually individual words rather than phrases. Arriving at correct responses to Victoria’s items generallyinvolves relating phrases in the items to co-referents in the text. Sometimes, as in the case of item 1(False), this also involves resolution of referencing within the text - recognising that ‘some answers’refers to the question of ‘their origins’, which in turn refers to ‘dreams’.In comparison to the trained item writers and to Victoria, Mathilda’s T/F/NG items make less use ofsynonymy and paraphrase, instead her strategy involves repeating extensively from sections of thetext, paraphrasing only the necessary information. The sequencing of information within the sentencein the text is retained in the item -item 2 (True) item reads ‘More than a quarter of carbon emissionsin the USA result from burning oil for transportation’. This closely reflects the relevant passage inthe text: ‘28 percent of carbon emissions in the United States result from the burning of 14 millionbarrels of oil a day for transportation’. Similarly in item 1 (True) the item closely reflects the text andmatching the paraphrase ‘being built next to’ with ‘under construction adjacent to’ gives the answer.Item 3 (False) is equally explicit, but the paraphrase ends with 2013 (which occurs in the precedingclause) in place of ‘next year’ from the text. Mathilda’s two Not Given items represent rather differentapproaches to the item type. In the first (item 4), she paraphrases a sentence from the text, herereplacing one constituent, ‘residential sources’ with another, ‘motor traffic’. Item 5, in contrast, isinadequate as a paraphrase because it incorporates details from the following clause into the definitionof the ‘green roof’.7 COMPARISONS BETWEEN GROUPSThe approach adopted for this study involved asking both experienced and inexperienced writers abouttheir practices based around Salisbury’s (2005) phases of the item construction process. The studycollected both written (flowchart) and oral (interview and focus group) data on item writer processesand products (draft and edited texts and items) and incorporated both deductive and inductiveapproaches to analysis.This approach has proved useful in identifying differences across the item writer groups and betweenindividuals within the groups. These differences highlight both the importance of item writer trainingand guidelines and suggest changes that might be advisable. In the context of recent researchundertaken by the University of Bedfordshire into the IELTS academic reading test, the current studycan help to explain some of the characteristics of IELTS texts identified by Weir et al (2009a) and thetypes of reading employed by IELTS test takers (Weir et al 2009b).7.1 Item writing processesBoth the experienced and non-experienced item writers seem to pass through similar steps inconstructing their items. They typically begin from a topic, locate texts related to the topic, identifyand evaluate potential IELTS texts before selecting one that seems appropriate - this is clearlySalisbury’s (2005) exploratory phase. Both groups reported that they found this the most timeconsumingstage in the item writing process.With the exception of Jane, the experienced writers all included more steps in their item writing flowchartsthan their non-experienced counterparts. The flow charts include similar attention to text editingin both groups, but there is greater attention to task development among the experienced group: thisbeing broken down into number of steps including revision and re-editing of the text following or inconjunction with item writing.IELTS Research Reports Volume 11321