Investigation Of Test-taking Strategies On Multiple-choice In Reading Comprehension Test

The empirical study is designed to investigate test-taking strategies on multiple choice comprehension tests. The study examines how 204 Chinese freshmen process multiple-choice format under three types of item presentation (content, discourse, and pragmatic). The aims are to investigate the link between item type, test performance and test-taking strategies and to gain truthful evidence for test validation. Through the interpretation of the qualitative and quantitative results, we can generate the following conclusions:1) According to the test-taking strategy category of Purpura, through retrospective method, we can get the empirical strategies on an item-by-item basis when a strategy list is given. The most often used strategies are elimination, key words and returning to the text strategy.2) The test-takers have used a variety of strategies when processing different item types. Strategies are not single event, but rather a creative sequence of event that test-takers actively use.3) Comprehension Strategies are the highest ranking category in content items (CI) and discourse items (DI), and Memory / Retrieval Strategies are the highest-ranking in pragmatic items (PI) category; at the same time, Evaluation Strategies are the lowest in all the item types.4) The extent of passage difficulties plays a role in strategy use. The test-takers employ more elimination strategy when the text is easy; while the subjects use more looking-back strategy when the text is more difficult.5) The processing accuracy varies according to the item types (content, discourse, pragmatic). No matter the item is easy or difficult; the highest accuracy rate is on content items (55%). In the difficult passage, pragmatic items have the lowest accuracy rate (19.8%); while in the easier passage, discourse items have the lowest accuracy (39.2%).6) Chinese learners have rather high proficiency in multiple-choice test. They can do effectively according to the features of multiple-choice formats. Based on the above conclusions, some pedagogical implications are made as follows: Firstly, it should be clear to both L2 teachers and L2 researchers that it is necessary to train students with some strategies, e.g. to encourage the students to guess the new words or idioms through context, eliminate some choices according to the format and enforces the training of discourse items.Secondly, according to different items, students should adjust their strategies such as...