A Comparative Study Of The Question Types Related To English Reading Comprehension

This paper describes a comparative study between a translation test and the five common question types of reading comprehension in college English tests,that is,true or false questions,short answer questions,banked cloze,multiple-choice reading comprehension,multiple choice cloze.As is known,they are common testing instruments used in College English tests in China.Translation test is used to measure the testees' reading comprehension level.The subjects of this study are 164 sophomores from three majors in LNTU.First, they are asked to reading comprehension Test 1 containing five testing passages in five question types,a translation passage and a post-test questionnaire.The results of this analysis are:first,Test 1 is a reliable and valid one,because the total score has a pretty high correlation coefficient with the translation;second,all these five types of reading comprehension are positively related with the total score;however,the correlation coefficient of the BC and SAQ with the total score are much higher than those of MCRC and MCC,which indicates MCRC and MCC question types are the least correlated reading question types to the total score;third,the ANOVA test between those five types of reading shows that it is more difficult to tell the students' comprehensive level only judging from their MCRC and MCC scores.The analysis of those testees' answers to the questionnaire indicates that most of them do not think that MCRC and MCC,TF can precisely reflect their real comprehension of the testing passages.This finding has got confirmation in the later interviews of 25 reporters from the 164 subjects.These 25 testees' verbal reports of their solving process of the questions after the passages show that in MCRC and MCC test there are more invalid items,whose answer cannot reflect the testees' decoding of the context since it is gained through some test-taking strategies rather than the testees' understanding of the passage.Therefore,based on this study,the author suggests that test designers should choose appropriate question type in accordance with their different purpose and use:and MCRC and MCC should not be used in a large-scale proficiency or selecting test,but combined with other testing instruments.