A Study Of Chemistry Test Questions In Guangdong Secondary Examination Based On Difficulty Quantification Model

The absolute difficulty of a test question is a parameter that determines the difficulty of the test question itself by the factors that compose it,and is an important indicator of the quality of the test question.The quantitative study of it can not only promote the maximum discriminatory function of each test,but also help front-line teachers to teach purposefully in their daily teaching.It is of significant research value to reasonably control the difficulty of the test questions in proposing the questions.In order to quantify the absolute difficulty of the chemistry test questions in the Guangdong Secondary Examination,and to clarify the source factors affecting the absolute difficulty of the test questions.In this study,based on further modification of the quantitative model of the difficulty of Bao Jiansheng,with the nine factors of test question context,information presentation,knowledge synthesis level,content level,inquiry level,reasoning level,openness level,arithmetic level,and multiple representations were used as a modified difficulty factor,the absolute difficulty of the chemistry test questions in the 2016-2020 Guangdong Secondary Examination was rated and analyzed in depth.The following conclusions were obtained after the study:(1)In terms of the content of the test questions,the scores of the five content topics of the Guangdong Secondary Examination in chemistry are presented as "chemical changes in matter" > "chemical substances around people" > "scientific investigation" > "the mystery of the composition of matter" > "chemistry and social development"."The mystery of the composition of matter" the theme of the test content accounted for a stable upward trend from year to year.(2)Overall,the main factors influencing the absolute difficulty of the chemistry test questions in the 2016-2020 Guangdong Secondary Examination are roughly the same,but there are slight differences.The factor that influenced the absolute difficulty of the 2016 questions the most was the level of content,followed by the level of inquiry and the level of knowledge synthesis.The factors that had the greatest impact on the absolute difficulty of the2017-2019 questions were the level of content,followed by the level of inquiry,and the information presentation.The factors that had the greatest impact on the absolute difficulty of the 2020 test questions were content level,followed by test context and level of inquiry.(3)In terms of the factors influencing the absolute difficulty of the test questions,the absolute difficulty values of content level,inquiry level and information presentation exceeded 1.5 in the past five years,so these three difficulty factors are the main factors influencing the absolute difficulty of the test questions.The absolute difficulty values of test question context,knowledge synthesis level and reasoning level vary significantly,which were the main factors causing the differences in the absolute difficulty of the chemistry test questions in Guangdong Secondary Examination.Besides,the changes in the absolute difficulty values of the test contexts and knowledge synthesis levels in the past five years indicated that the test objectives of the Guangdong Secondary School Examination chemistry test were changing from "knowledge-based" to "ability-based".The changes in the absolute difficulty values of openness level,arithmetic level and multiple representation were small,and their effects on the absolute difficulty of the chemistry test questions in Guangdong Secondary Examination were not obvious.Based on the results of the study,the author proposes the teaching suggestions that teachers should focus on the teaching of basic knowledge in their daily teaching and develop students' ability to analyze and solve problems from various aspects,introducing digital experiments in the classroom,as well as the suggestions that they should enhance the contextualization of the test questions,increase the openness of the test questions and increase the multiple representation form of test questions when proposing them.