Evaluating Faulty Items

Item 1 is not an example of a good item as the distractors do not well function in this item. Distractor A is definitely not the answer if students know the subject verb agreement rule. Sally is singular, therefore the verb should be added with ‘-S’. The distractor C is definitely not the answer as Brown is not a type of tense. Hence, the possible answers are B and D.

Item 2 does not test on specific lexical knowledge. Therefore, students tend to confuse on what are the types of lexical that need to be filled in such as adjective, verb, noun and so forth. 

Item 3 tests on spelling. There are many possible answers for the unscrambled letters above. For instance, the word CAT can become TAC. Hence, the raters need to know the specific answer in order to mark the correct answer in a reliable way. 

Item 4 have a very long winded instruction that can confuse the students when reading it. The item is valid to the extent that it tests the meaning of the word from the context. However, some of the candidates tend to guess the answer by choosing on the options given on the text. The practicability issue of this item is the problem  here. 

Item 5 has a practicability issue due to the Question ( C) in which the Art stream students are unable to write the essay on this question because they do not have knowledge on Einstein’ Theory. A writing item must make sure that all questions are able to do by all the students either in Art or Science stream. 

Item 6 is an information transfer question. The item is valid as it tests on reading comprehension. However, students can simply guess the answer as they are only required to fill in the numbers on the questions only. 

Item 7 tests on what it supposed to test. However, it only tests on the words that are used instead of information that the listening audio has provided. Students that know on some of the word in the sentence structure usually used, tend to fill the word(s) easily without listening to the audio speech.

Item 8 is not valid as it does not test on speaking abilty. Students only follow on what the teacher has said or pronounced and they cannot speak without the teacher’s guide.