Piloting of reading and listening tasks

Piloting is important for the test

• How difficult are the tasks?
• How good are the tasks?

Norskprøven must be appropriate for the candidates who take the test. To make sure this is the case, new tasks are tried out on participants in adult education, who will later take the test. After the trial or piloting, results are analysed. The analysis shows:

1. How difficult the tasks are: We can see who answers which tasks correctly. (For an A2 task, for instance, the aim is that a participant at A2 level will answer correctly, and that those below A2 will not.)
2. If the tasks work: Do the tasks have only one correct answer? Do many participants misunderstand? Do many strong candidates give the wrong answer?

If tasks are not good enough, or nobody answers them correctly, they will not be used in the test. For the analysis to be correct, piloting must be carried out in the same way as a real test. You must do it without help and without using aids.

For automatically scored reading and listening tests, piloting is a must. For the analysis to be reliable, at least 500 participants must take each task. This means that unless people take part in piloting, there will be no Norskprøve.

Piloting is useful for the participants

1. Practice
2. Many difficult tasks
3. Result

Participants have the chance to practice for the test: You learn how the test works and get to know the task types.

Afterwards it is useful for the participants to talk to their teachers about the experience. The goal is NOT to answer all tasks correctly. Everybody will get many tasks that seem very difficult. It is important that you are prepared for that. Do not spend a lot of time on tasks that feel too difficult. You may get the result you are hoping for even if the test feels very difficult.

Schools can choose to receive the result of the piloting for their participants. This result tells the teachers which level (A1-B2) each candidate is likely to have been given if the pilot had been a real test. The result also specifies if the level is high, medium, or low. A possible result may be, for example, “high A2”.

Since we do not know how difficult the tasks are until after the pilot period is over, you cannot get a result right away. How many right and wrong answers you get, does not tell you anything about your level. You will also not be able to see whether you answer a task correctly or not.

To everybody who participates in the piloting, we want to say thank you so much! You help us make a good test which is appropriate for the test takers.

Taking part in piloting

Two tests – three levels

There are two pilot tests (the real Norwegian test also has a writing test):

1. Reading test: 75 minutes
2. Listening test: Approximately 30-45 minutes

Levels

1. A1-A2
2. A2-B1
3. B1-B2

Logging on

• Use Google Chrome
• www.enovate.no/vox - choose «Kandidat»
• The teacher will give you a username and password.

About the pilot tests

You must not get help with the tasks. If you do, the analysis will not be correct, and it may make the test more difficult.

Do the test on a computer, not a mobile device or tablet.

The points you get at the end will not tell you how well you did.

You will get your result from your teacher approximately 14 days after the piloting period ends.