Construction of Test-Design, Subject-Question-Paper & Marking- Scheme

BY: Prof. Rajesh Kumar

Pedagogy of English
B.Ed.(Regular)
I ST Year

Examinations have always been an important part of the total educational

process. Examinations are designed and administered at different stages of
education and their results are used for various purposes like improvement in
learning, grading and classification of students, selection for admission to higher
classes or for scholarship, certification and for providing guidance for future.

In our country, written examinations are the most commonly used technique of
testing student’s achievement. Not only are they conducted by Boards of School
Education as public examinations but also by each and every school in the country
as terminal and annual examinations. Besides these, the written tests are
organized by schools in each subject every now and then. In fact, the evaluation
of student’s scholastic achievement is based on these written tests and
examinations.

A question paper is the basic tool used in attest or examination. It is usual for a
teacher to prepare a test by assembling questions on the spur of the moment
without taking into consideration the characteristics of a good test. But to serve
any useful purpose a test must possess certain attributes without which it will be
a poor measuring instrument.

CONSTRUCTION OF A TEST-DESIGN:

Once the teacher or the test-constructor is aware of the characteristics that a

good test must possess, he or she can proceed to construct a test, which may be either
a unit test or a full-fledged question paper covering all the aspects of the syllabus.
Whether the test is a unit test for use in classroom testing or a question paper for use
in final examination, the steps of test construction are the same, which are as follows:

PREPARE A TEST-DESIGN:

The first step in preparing a test is to construct a design. A test is not merely a
collection of assorted questions. To be of any effective use, it has to be planned in
advance to be used for testing these. For this weightage to different objectives,
different areas of content, and different forms of questions are to be decided, along
with the scheme of options and sections, and these are the dimensions which are
known as design of a test.

(1) Weightage to Objectives:

To make a test valid, it is necessary to analyze the objectives of the course and decide
which objectives are to be tested and in what properties. For this marks are allotted to
each objective to be tested according to its importance. In English language testing the
three major objectives are knowledge of the elements of language, comprehension
and expression. The weightage to all these three objectives may be decided in
percentage. For example for a test of 50 marks the following weightage may be
decided.

Objective Percentage of Marks Marks Allotted

Knowledge 10% 5
Comprehension 40% 20
Expression 50% 25
Total 100% 50

(2) Weightage to different areas of content:

It is necessary to analyze the syllabus and allot weightage to different areas of content.
This is again done to endure the validity of the test. A hypothetical example is given
below for an English language test showing to content units for a class XI-TEST-

CONTENT AREAS PERCENTAGE OF MARKS MARKS ALLOTTED

Reading Skills 30% 15
Writing Skills 30% 15
Textual Content 40% 20
Total 100% 50

(3) Weightage to different forms of Questions:

After analyzing the objectives and the content, it is to be seen how they are to be
tested. A particular objective and content can be tested more appropriately by a
particular form of questions. So, different forms of questions are to be included in the
test for testing different objectives and contents. For this a number of different type of
questions to be included in the test and total marks carried by each of them are
decided. This takes care of the reliability of test:
 Forms of Questions No. of Questions Marks Allotted % of Marks
Essay Type 3 19 38%
Short Answer Type 9 23 56%
Very Short Answer Type 8 8 16%
Total 20 50 100%

(4) Scheme of Sections:

The design of a question paper may also indicate the scheme of sections for the paper.
For example, a question paper may consist of both multiple choice questions and short
type questions. Such a test may have two sections, one consisting of multiple choice
questions and the other consisting of short type questions, essay type and very short
answer type questions. In case the examiner wants, the question paper can also be
divided into sections area wise like one section for reading comprehension, another
for writing tasks, third for grammar and so on. If the multiple choice questions are not
substantial in number, there is no need to keep a separate section.

(5) Scheme of Options:

The design may indicate the pattern of options i.e. the complete elimination of overall
options or retention of internal options within limits. No options are to be provided in
case of multiple choice, short answer and very short answer questions: for essay type
questions the teacher may like to provide internal options. While providing options, it
may be kept in mind that the options are comparable in terms of objectives to be
tested, the form of questions and the difficulty level of the questions. As far as
possible, the major area of content should also be the same in the options.

While planning the test-design of the paper, it should be so planned that the difficulty
level of the questions varies so as to cater to all the students of the class and also to
discriminate between high achievers and low achievers. The suggested percentage for
easy and difficult questions is 20% whereas average questions can be 60%. The
difficulty level of the test paper can be varied according to the level of the students. If
the class has a large number of good students, then 25% to 30% difficult questions can
be given.

CONSTRUCTION OF SUBJECT-QUESTION-PAPER:
After deciding on the design of the test, the blue print is prepared. The blueprint is a
three dimensional chart shows the placement of each question in respect of the
objective and the content area that it tests. It also indicates the marks carried by each
question. It is useful to prepare a blue print so that the test maker knows which
question will test which objective and which content unit and how many marks it
would crry. Without a blue print only the weightage are decided for objectives, content
areas and types of questions. The blue print concretizes the design in operational
terms and all the dimensions of a questions i.e. its objective, its form the content area
it would cover and the marks allotted to it, become clear to the test maker.

Overall, there is no set procedure for preparing a blue print. However, the following
sequential steps would help in preparing a good blue print:-

1. Transfer the decisions regarding weightage to objectives— Knowledge,

Comprehension and Expression on the given proforma.

2. Transfer the weightages already decided for different content units. For this, list
the content units under the content areas in the column given at the left hand and the
marks under the column of total given at the right hand side.

3. Place the essay type questions first in the blue print. Place them under the
objectives which you want to test through these questions. The marks of the questions
may be shown in the column under the objectives and the number of questions may
be given in brackets.

4. If a question, marks are to be split between two objectives indicate it with

asterisks and a dotted line as shown in the example.

5. After placing the essay type questions, place the short answer type questions
under the objectives and beside the content unit that you want to test through them.

6. Place the very short answer type questions in a similar way .

7. Place the multiple choice questions in the same way- marks outside the bracket,
number of questions inside the bracket.

8. Calculate the sub totals of all the questions under all the objectives.

9. Calculate the totals. Your total should tally with the weightages of objectives and
content units that you had already marked on the blue prin. Fill in the summary of
types of questions, Scheme of Sections and Scheme of Options.
 BLUE-PRINT
Objectives KNOWLEDGE COMPREHENSION EXPRESSION TOTAL

Content
Areas E SA VSA O E SA VSA O E SA VSA
Reading Skills 4(4)
Passage-I 2(2)* 2(-)* 15(8)
Passage-II 2(1)* 2(-)*
1(1)* 2(-)*
Writing Skills
Letter-writing 2(1)* 3(-)* 15
Notice-writing 1(1)* 3(-)*
Report-writing 1(1)* 5(-)*
Textual-Content
Long-Ans.-Question 4(1)* 4(-)* 1(-)* 20
Short-Ans.-Question 1(1)* 2(2)* 2(-)*
Extract 1(1)* 4(4) 1(-)*
SUB-TOTAL 3(2) 2(2) 4(1) 8(7) 8(8) 12(-) 13(-)
TOTAL 5(4) 20(16) 25(-) 50(20)
Note:- Figures within brackets indicates the number of questions and figures outside the brackets indicates
marks. * Denotesthat marks have been combined to form one question.

SUMMARY:

TYPE OF QUESTIONS NO. OF QUESTIONS MARKS

Essay 3 19
Short Answer(SA) 9 23
Very Short Answer(VSA) _ 8_ _8_
20 50

Scheme of Sections: --- Three Sections

Section A Reading Skills
Section B Writing Skills
Section C Text Books
Scheme of Options—Option will be given only in essay type questions.
Prepare questions based on the blue-print:

After the blue print is ready, questions are to be prepared according to the dimensions
defined in the blue print. For example, if ther are essay type questions to be prepared
to test the writing skills, one letter and one report and also a short answer question on
writing a notice, the test constructor should prepare these questions along with their
options which may be comparable in terms of objectives to be tested, content areas,
forms of questions and the difficulty level.
While preparing questions it must be kept that the questions:-

(a) It is based on the specific objective of teaching as indicated in the blue print.

(b) It relates to the specific content area as per the blue print.

(c ) It is written in the form as required by the blue print and satisfies all the rules for
framing that form of questions.

(d) It is at the desired level of difficulty.

(e) It is written in clear, correct and precise language which is well within the
comprehension of pupils.

(f) Clearly indicates the scope and length of the answer.

Another thing to be kept in view while writing questions is to prepare the answers
simultaneously because quite often the answers help in refining the questions.

Assembling the Question-Paper:

After the questions are prepared, they are to be assembled in a question paper form.
For this, instructions are to be written. General instructions for the paper may be given
on top where as instructions for specific questions may be given just before the
questions.

The order of questions is also to be decided while assembling the question paper.
Sometimes it is according to the forms of questions, i.e. Objective-type-questions may
be put first, then very short answer, short answer and essay type questions or it may
be according to the content as in the case of a language question paper where we may
have structure questions first, then questions on unseen passage and then
composition question.

The assembling and editing of the question paper is important from the point of view
of administration. For example, if the question is divided into two sections, one of
which is to be collected within a specific time limit, clear instructions to do so should
be mentioned and also the arrangement of questions should be such that both the
sections are easily demarcated.
PREPARING THE SCORING KEY & THE MARKING SCHEME:
Scoring key is to be prepared for objective type questions and the marking scheme for
other questions.

The scoring key gives the alphabet of the correct answer and the marks carried by each
question. The marking scheme gives the expected outline answer and the value points
for each aspect of the answer.

Detailed instructions for marking are also worked out, e.g. in marking compositions,
etc. It is specified as to how many marks are to be deducted for spelling mistakes or
structural mistakes, or if the composition is to be grtaded, how it is to be done and on
what basis.

The detailed marking scheme is necessary to ensure consistency and uniformity in

scoring by different examiners. In other words it ensures reliability of scoring.

PREPARING QUESTION-WISE ANALYSIS:

After the question paper and marking scheme are finished, it is desirable to
prepare a question-wise analysis. This analysis helps in tallying the
questions in the test with the blue print. It also enables us to know the
strengths and weaknesses of the test better, e.g., through the analysis we
can know how many topics have been covered in the syllabus, what is the
difficulty level of each question and what specifications are being tested by
each question. The analysis is done on the following points:
1.Number of the questions
2. Objective tested by the questions
3. Specification on which the question is based
4. Topic covered
5. Form of the question
6. Marks allotted
7. Approximate time required for answering
8.Estimated difficulty level.