Proficiency Tests
If your aim in a test is to tap global competence in a language, then you are, in conventional terminology, testing proficiency. A proficiency test is not intended to be limited to any one course, curriculum, or single skill in the language. Proficiency tests have traditionally consisted of standardized multiple-choice items on grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, aural comprehension, and sometimes of a sample of writing. Such tests often have validity weaknesses: they may confuse oral proficiency with literacy skills, or they may confuse knowledge about a language with ability to use a language; a number of other weaknesses may pertain (Dieterich, Freeman, and Crandall 1979). Proficiency tests need not be defined in such limited terms, however, as we shall see later in this chapter; some great strides have been made toward defining communicative proficiency tests that depart from tradition in radical ways.

A rather typical example of a standardized proficiency test is the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) produced by the Educational Testing Service. It is used by nearly 1000 institutions of higher education in the United States as an indicator of a prospective students ability to undertake academic work in an English medium. The TOEFL consists of the following three sections:

Section 1, Listening Comprehension, measures the ability to understand English as it is spoken in the United States. The oral aspects of the language are stressed. The problems tested include vocabulary that is more frequently used in spoken English, structures that are primarily peculiar to spoken English, and sound and intonation distinctions that have proven to be difficult for nonnative speakers. The stimulus material is recorded in standard American English; the response options are printed in the test books.

Section 2, Structure and Written Expression, measures mastery of important structural and grammatical points in standard written English. The language tested is formal, rather than conversational. The topics of the sentences are of a general academic nature 'so that individuals in specific fields of study or from specific national or linguistic group s have no particular advantage. When topics have a national context, they refer to United States history, culture, art, or literature.

Section 3, Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension, tests the ability to under- stand the meanings and uses of words in written English as well as the ability to understand a variety of reading materials. So that there is no advantage to individuals in any one field of study, the questions based on reading materials do not require outside knowledge of the subject matter.
Proficiency tests sometimes add sections that involve free writing (e.g., ETS's Test of Written English) and/or oral production (e.g., ETS's Test of Spoken English), but these responses diminish the practicality of scoring on a high-volume basis. The TOEFL and virtually every other large-scale proficiency test is machine scorable; when scorers must either read writing samples or judge audiotapes of spoken proficiency, a great deal of administrative cost and time are involved.