As far as we are concemed, 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 ＂lran...As far as we are concemed, 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 ＂lran＂ 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.展开更多
文摘As far as we are concemed, 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 ＂lran＂ 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.
