Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension Tests and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners Answering Strategies

Abstract

Islamic Azad University Takestan Branch, Takestan, IranAs far as we are concerned, one of the elements of assessing EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language) learners' language proficiency in institutions and universities in our country "Iran" are multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. We also know that, it comprises one major section of the standard and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) tests. Taking into account its importance and the problems which EFL learners have answered them, I get motivated to uncover some of the test-taking strategies which they employ to answer multiple-choice reading comprehension questions when dealing with familiar versus unfamiliar topics. To get a better conclusion, I choose 20 advanced male and female candidates whose English proficiency is at an acceptable level and at least at the same age level, and they major in English language from different colleges and universities. They are given two reading comprehension passages (familiar and unfamiliar), each one with five final questions and allotted time to answer the questions. Two main instruments in this study are a retrospective think-aloud protocol and a semi-structured interview. The results of the reading comprehension tests and interview part revealed that advanced learners' high scores in the familiar topic were not because of their strategy use but because of their high linguistic and background knowledge on the topic. I also concluded that the number, kind, and sequence of strategies employed, were greatly dependent on the degree of testees' familiarity on the topic. In other words, test-takers used more strategies to compensate for their lack of linguistic knowledge.

Examination of Different Reading Strategies with Eye Tracking Measures in Paragraph Questions

“…The unique arguments of the supporters of both views are explained in detail under the title of strategy use in test-taking. Also most of the studies about reading strategies (Anderson, Bachman, Perkins & Cohen, 1991;Chou, 2013;Cohen, 2010;Kung, 2017;Parhoodeh, Rostamy & Mehry, 2015) in the literature were conducted on second language context, but this study was carried out within first language setting. However, little studies which use eye-tracking technology were situated in the text-based problem solving context.…”