Low scores spur retooling of Arabic test

[unhappycamper]

Low scores spur retooling of Arabic test
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Nov 2, 2007 17:58:44 EDT

The Army has pulled the new version of the modern standard Arabic language test out of circulation and is modifying it after soldiers overall posted unexpectedly low scores.

When the new version of the test went online a year ago, following the introduction of more rigorous versions of all the Defense Language Proficiency Tests, or DLPT 5, it was expected that scores would dip, and they have.

But Arabic test scores “went down more than people had anticipated,” said Mika Hoffman, dean of testing at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif.

About 4,500 military students at DLI have taken the DLPT 5 in modern standard Arabic in the past year. Only about 1 in 6 have been able to score above the second of three levels, compared with about 4 out of 6 test takers in languages such as Spanish and Russian.

Hoffman could not give specific examples of problems with the Arabic test because the contents are not meant to be made public. All the language tests are being reviewed, but Arabic “does have some specific problems,” she noted.

“It would typically be the way some things were phrased. It would be, for example, an answer that was supposed to be a wrong answer could actually be interpreted so that it was a correct answer,” Hoffman explained.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/army_arabictest_07115w/