[img]2012q1/ct_etoefm_etoefspeakc_1917_20121[/img] [originaltext]Professor

Professor
    An achievement test, also called an attainment test, looks back over a comparatively longer period of learning, for example, a year’s work, or a whole course, or even a variety of different courses. It is intended to show the standard which the students have now reached in relation to other students at the same stage. This standard may be established for a country, as with school-leaving certificates: or it may relate to an individual school or group of schools which issues certificates to students attending courses. But the important point which is common to all these situations is that the standard remains as far as possible from course to course and from year to year and is external to the individual class or textbook.
    The aim of a proficiency test is to assess the student’s ability to apply in actual situations what he has learnt. It seeks to answer the question: "Having learnt this much, what can the student do with it?" This type of test is not usually related to any particular course because it is concerned with the student’s current standing in relation to his future needs. For example, a test, which sets out to assess the proficiency of a student hoping to follow a university course in an English-speaking country, would need to take into account not only his level of skills in listening to lectures, but also his ability to take notes, to make full use of what is written on the blackboard or projected, and finally to use the information he has gained from the lecture in his subsequent writing. An important element in proficiency testing is to assess in some way the student’s ability to repair breakdowns in communication, by asking for a repetition or an explanation, for example, or by rephrasing what he has just tried to say.