Importance of Test-Taking Strategies for Language Learners

Test-taking strategies have been playing a crucial role for language learners as nowadays test is used as a reliable way of checking and evaluating learners’ knowledge. The International English Language Testing System ( IELTS), which is the world’s leading English language proficiency test, with over 2.5 million IELTS tests taken annually, has been recognized as one of the most secure, valid and reliable means in assessing English language proficiency for education, immigration and professional  accreditation.  IELTS test, which is a high stake test, success or failure can have a life changing impact on candidates. As a result, smart and critical reading and thinking strategies need to be used sufficiently in order to be successful or achieve the best possible score in the test (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Rogers & Harley, 1999).

There are numerous factors affecting the candidates’ results except for knowledge and ability. One of the most important factors is learning and test-taking strategies (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; O’ Malley & Chamot, 1990). Test-taking strategies are simply defined as specific actions or techniques taken by users to aid them overcome the test easier, faster and more accu rate. As Oxford define, learning strategies are “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed and more transferrable to new situations” ( Oxford, 1990, p.8).

Reading is considered as a complex cognitive process of decoding, deriving and receiving message from the writer. It is a complicated and meaningful skill of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas, which requires continuous practice, development, and refinement, especially creativity and critical analysis.

• Statement of the problem

IELTS test, which serves as a testimonial system, has been gaining its popularity in many countries around the world. For many candidates, IELTS plays an important role for their future career or further study. IELTS is the test of language ability, it concerns with the capacity to use various aspects of language including vocabulary, structure, grammar efficiently  so having clear and strategic skills to handle the task would certainly helpful.

Test-taking strategies have been the focus of many studies. In spite of many attempts have made towards learning and test-taking strategies, few was devoted to test-taking strategies used in reading modules of IELTS while for many Vietnamese candidates, reading is regarded as the most challenging one. All of these reasons stated have become the motivations that stimulate the researcher to carry out the study named “IELTS READING TEST-TAKING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY HIGH SCORE CANDIDATES IN ACADEMIC TRAINING MODULE”

• Purpose of the study

Factors Affecting Candidates’ Results

Test taking strategies are considered as keys to success for not only researchers, teachers but also for learners, especially test takers. For globally difficult standardized test like IELTS, it is necessary to have clear strategies to deal with the test best. The study will examine the test taking strategies used by high score candidates in the reading module of IELTS and evaluate the effectiveness of those techniques, further indicate the differences in English test-taking strategies use among winning candidates. The research will provide helpful guidance, example and assistance for readers in order to achieve their greatest potential.

• Scope

The study is aimed to document the test-taking strategies of 30 Vietnamese English foreign language (EFL) learners who had already attended the IELTS test and gained their latest IELTS band score for reading module of over 7.0. Furthermore, exclusive interviews among chosen candidates who show diversity in their reading strategies are carried out.

• Research questions

The study is going to answer the following research questions:

1. What test-taking strategies frequently used by Vietnam test takers in performing True/ False/ Not givenor Yes/ No/ Not given; Multiple Choice and Matching headings tasks? 
2. How are those English test-taking strategies related to test takers’ performance?
3. Is there any difference in English test-taking strategy use among successful candidates?
4. Expected outcome and significance of the study

By conducting this research, the researcher expects to find out the most commonly efficient used test-taking strategies among IELTS candidates and evaluate the effectiveness of those techniques. Furthermore, an analysis of the difference in test-taking strategy among users will be revealed to answer the question how much is the variable?

Once finished the paper could serve as a good reference for those who wish to have a closer view into the test-taking strategies employed by students in response to some specific comprehension tasks. Both IELTS candidates and IELTS trainers could refer to the findings of the study to have more effective using as well as teaching reading IELTS strategies.

According to Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, reading can be defined as the process of “perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents. This can be done silently. The understanding that result is called reading comprehension.” Collins English Learner’s Dictionary describes reading as “an act of looking at and understanding point”. On the other hand, Anderson (1985) considered reading as a complex process in which the reader have to  construct the meaning of the text and use various interconnected informative sources to understand the real meaning of the passage.  Moreover, skilled reading needs to be constructive, fluent, strategic, motivated and a lifelong pursuit. Another interesting definition of reading is reading is a energetic interactive process of “the reader’s existing knowledge; the information suggested by the text being read; and the context of the reading situation” (Wixson, Peters, Weber, & Roeber, 1987). Simply defined, reading is a process of reducing the uncertainty about meanings a text conveys and it can be understood as a negotiation of meaning between the text and its reader. The way the readers interact with the text is decided by the knowledge, expectations and strategies the readers use. Importantly, most texts are understood in different ways by different readers.

Reading in Language Acquisition and IELTS Test

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessment framework indicates that there are two main purposes of reading: reading for literary purposes and reading for informational purposes.

Grabe and Stoller (2002) devided the purposes of reading into seven subtypes, including: searching for simple information; skimming quickly; learning from texts; integrating information; writing or searching for information needed for writing; criticizing text and getting general comprehension. Actually, the aims and objectives of reading depend greatly on the readers and different readers will have different reading purposes.

Learning strategies is a familiar term since it can be applied into varieties of fields regarding both content and context such as math, science, history, languages and other subjects. According to Weinstein and Mayer (1986), broadly defined learning strategies are “behaviours and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning” which are “intended to influence the learner’s encoding process” (Weinstein & Mayer, 1986). In 1988, Mayer developed the definition more specifically and described learning strategies as “behaviours of a learner that are intended to influence how the learner processes information.”

Speaking of language learning strategies, there have been numerous definitions about this category. Foreign or second language learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps or techniques students use often consciously to improve their progress in apprehending, internalizing, and using foreign language (Oxford, 1990). Strategies are the tools for active, self-directed involvement needed for developing foreign or second language communicative ability (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990).

Many scholars have attempted to categorize language learning strategies including some famous linguists like Wenden and Rubin 1987; O’Malley et al. 1985; Oxford 1990; Stern 1992; Ellis 1994,…Wenden and Rubin in 1987 classified language learning strategies into three main forms, consisting of learning strategies, communication strategies, and social strategies. In contrast, Oxford’s (1990) taxonomy includes direct and indirect strategies.  

In 1985, O’Malley and Chamot developed a classification of three types of language learning strategies:

• Metacognitive strategies that comprise of thinking about (or knowledge of) the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring learning while it is taking place, and self?evaluating of learning after the task had been completed.

• Cognitive strategies, which involved mental manipulating or transforming of materials or tasks, it is intended to enhance comprehension, acquisition, or retention.
• Social/affective strategies, as the name suggests, it concerns with using social interactions to assist in the comprehension, learning or retention of information.

Nevertheless, different scholars have proposed different categorizations for learning strategies (Brown, 1987; O’ Malley & Chamot, 1990). Most of them recommend that students develop the following strategies:

• Cognitive strategies: Learners employ cognitive strategies to focus on the important aspects of material to be learned, to comprehend input, to store for future use what they have learned, and to develop facility in using the learned material.
• Communication strategies: These strategies are developed to initiate conversation, to maintain conversation, to negotiate meaning, and to terminate conversation.
• Global strategies: They are used to read a paper in the second language, to make friends who speak the second language, to go to movies in the language, metacognitive strategies, to plan for learning, to monitor learning, and to check the outcome.

There have been many studies investigated the characteristics and styles of good language learners as a way to improve and transfer them to less successful language learners. Moreover, there have been many studies proved the close relationship between strategies application and the possibility of success of students (Rubin (1975), Stern (1975) and Naiman, Frolich, Stern, and Todesco (1978)).

According to Rubin (1975), it is essential to enlighten less proficient language learners by encouraging them to learn the strategies of those who are more talented and she listed seven strategies which good language learners often apply, including:  guessing, communicating, avoiding inhibition, attending to form, practicing, monitoring and attending to meaning.

Previous Studies on Test-Taking Strategies

Stern (1975) also proposed 7 language learning strategies which he believed to be characteristics of good language learners, consisting of experimenting, planning, developing the new language into an ordered system, revising progressively, using the language in real communication, developing the target language into a separate reference system and learning to think in the target language. 

Brown in 2007 described an account of good language learners’ personality and he emphasized the need for teachers to enhance students’ acquiring information process instead of just delivering it. 

1. Finds their own way.

2.  Organize information about language.

3.  Are creative, developing a “feel” for the language by experimenting with its grammar and words.

4.  Make their own opportunities for practice in using the language inside and outside the language classroom.

5.  Use memories and other memory strategies to recall what has been learned.

6.  Make errors work for them and not against them

7.  Use linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first language, in learning a second language.

8.  Use contextual cues to help them in comprehension.

9.  Learn to make intelligent guesses

10. Learn chunks of language as wholes and formalized routines to help them.

11.  Learn certain tricks that help to keep conversation going.

12.  Learn certain production strategies to fill in gaps in their own competence.

13. Learn different styles of speech and writing and learn to vary their language according to the formality of the situation.

Table 1: Characteristics of good language learners (Brown, 2007: 259-260)

Generally, many writers such as O’Malley and Chamot (1990), Oxford (1990), Wenden (1991), Cohen (1998), Cohen and Macaro (2007) and Griffiths (2008) have suggested that learners might be able to learn language more effectively by the use of language learning strategies and those language learning strategies differ  from users to users.

Comprehension is always the foremost purpose of any readers with different proficient level and the defining factor to decide the degree of command is reading strategies. Most of the previous studies indicated that using effective and appropriate reading strategies will certainly enhance comprehension.

Different learners will have distinctive reading comprehension strategies. However, generally there exist two most popular ones, they are top-down and bottom – up strategies. The top-down strategies facilitate readers to comprehend a larger piece of text, such as paragraph. This type of strategies help readers recognize the whole meaning of the passage easier. On the contrary, the bottom-up strategies deal with sentence-by-sentence, which means in order to understand the whole text, readers need to read and understand each sentence first (Cohen, 1998; Phakiti, 2003; Rogers & Harley, 1999).

Each test taker has favorite strong tactics to deal with the test and it is important to explore and identify those strategies so that high-qualified ones should be encouraged to be adopted by test takers.

There have been a number of studies into this field since as Cohen (1998) indicates, “In order to assess reading comprehension in a second or foreign language, it is necessary to have a working knowledge of what that process entails.” As a result, an approach to test-taking strategies is necessary to understand how test-takers handle the task. Test takers use different test-taking strategies, this is demonstrated in many studies (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Cohen, 1998; Phakiti, 2003; Roger & Harley, 1999). According to Rogers and Harley (1999), test-taking strategies are processes which help learners to use “the features and format of a test” to get more correct answers in a test-taking situation. The test-taking strategies may be talked about are: “ reading the rubrics and instruction carefully, planning the allocated time properly, making use of key words in the questions, delaying answering complex and difficult questions, and reading and evaluating the work in order to check the answers”. In other aspects, Cohen (1998) claims that test-taking strategies involve language use strategies and testwiseness strategies. To “keep”, “retain”, “remind”, and “apply” the information for the test, there are four useful kinds of language use strategies, consisting of retrieval, rehearsal, cover and communication strategies, meanwhile testwiseness strategies relate more to test-taking experience and knowledge (Cohen, 1998; Goh, 2002). Phakiti in his study in 2003 concluded that the use of metacognitive and cognitive strategies have constructive association with the reading comprehension test performance. Moreover, higher examinees tend to use more metacognitive strategy than the lower successful examinees.

Research Questions

Generally speaking, test-taking strategies are skills which can be learned and acquired. It is obvious that among candidates with the same proficiency, the one equipped with specific test-taking strategies will certainly get higher score than learners that have not learned any test-taking strategies (Anderson, 2002; Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Cohen, 1998; Khaldieh, 2000; Phakiti, 2003; Rogers & Harley, 1999). In addition, the knowledge of how to prepare for exams and take them can have a significant impact on learners’ perceptions towards exam, decrease their test-anxiety, increase their self-confidence, make a difference in exam scores, and finally, help them to be more successful ( Pour- Mohammadi & Abidin, 2012).

Generally recognized as one of the most reliable testing system, IELTS- the International English Language Testing System is specifically designed to assess the language ability of candidates needing to study or work in English speaking countries. IELTS certificate is the valuable ticket for those who wish to enter to university in not only the UK but also in other countries in the world. Moreover, it is highly regarded by employers in many countries, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.  IELTS is jointly managed by the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL), British Council and IDP: IELTS Australia. IELTS conforms to the highest international standards of language assessment.

There are two forms of IELTS testing: Academic and General Training versions. Each test includes 4 skills: Speaking, listening, reading and writing. This paper is going to focus on reading skill of Academic Training module, which measures English language proficiency needed for academic, higher educational environment.

The IELTS Academic Training procedures and components can be described in the following chart: 

Listening	Speaking	Reading	Writing
Candidates listen to a number of recorded texts, which increase in difficulty as the test progresses. These include a mixture of monologues and conversations and feature a variety of English accents and dialects. The recording is heard only once, but candidates are given time to read the questions and write down and check their answers.	The test is a face-to-face interview. Candidates are assessed on their use of spoken English to answer short questions to speak at length on a familiar topic, and also to interact with the examiner.	There are three reading passages with tasks. Texts are taken from books, magazines, journals, and newspapers, all written for a non-special audience. At least one of the texts contains a detailed argument.	The first task requires writing a description of at least 150 words. This is based on material found in a chart, table, graph or diagram and demonstrates their ability to summarise the main features of the point. The second task requires writing an essay of 250 words in response to a statement or question.

Table 2: The IELTS Academic Procedures and Components (British Council, 2008)

There is a distinctive difference between Academic and General Training modules in reading and writing tasks, while listening and speaking are the same for both versions. General Reading texts are mainly taken from notices, advertisements, official documents, booklets… and tend to focus on survival reading skills, which aim at workers or employees. On the contrary, Academic Reading, as its name suggests, is targeted at those who want to enter undergraduate or postgraduate courses or seeking professional registration. This paper only concentrates on Reading test-taking strategies of Academic Training module that is of great concern in recent years.

The topic chosen in Academic Reading module are various, including general science themes, the environment, health and social psychology, technological and social developments, gender and other issues (Everett & Colman, 1999). All of IELTS passages are taken from authentic sources and are generally international but neutral (Brook-Hart, 2012) since “texts which may cause the reader offence or anxiety, texts which require specialist knowledge, are too specific in content or rely on world knowledge or knowledge outside the texts would not conform to the guidelines of an objective testing procedure” ( Everett & Colman, 1999, p23).

Purposes of Reading

In the IELTS Reading Test (Academic Module), there are a number of types of questions to compose the test, consisting of:

Multiple choice

• – Short-answer questions
• – Sentence completion
• – Note/ summary/ flowchart/ table completion
• – Labeling a diagram
• – Matching heading for identified paragraphs/ sections of the text
• – Identification of information in the text: true, false or not given
• – Classification
• – Matching lists/ phrases

The appearance of different task types is the key assessment of the test-takers’ competence.

As stated by Brook-Hart (2012), the three most frequent IELTS reading tasks are Multiple Choice, True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given and Matching Headings. As a result, the study will focus on finding and differentiating the reading strategies to deal with those tasks.

Being familiar with reading strategies is essential for test takers as most of the reading texts in the IELTS test are complicated and challenging. Moreover, a variety of question types is used in the reading passages so knowing certain techniques for each question type will be definitely helpful.

The following tables summarize the task descriptions as well as strategies needed when completing the task for each type chosen to analyze in the study:

Multiple Choice:

Task instruction	Choose the appropriate letters A-D  and write them in boxes 33-34 on your answer sheet
Task description	This task requires readers to read the reading and choose  the right statement which is accurate to the information in the reading passage
Skill needed	– Skimming – Scanning
Test taking strategies	– Read the instruction carefully – Skim all the questions briefly to get an idea of the topics for which you will be searching when reading the text. – Read the first question again more carefully. Decide what you will need to read to answer the question. Is the question asking you for a particular detail that you need to find in the text? Or is the question asking you for an answer which requires a global understanding of the whole text? – Once you have decided the best strategy for dealing with the question (as above), you will need to proceed to read the text in the appropriate manner, for example reading for gist, reading for detail etc

Table 3: Multiple Choice Task Description 

True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given:

Task instruction	Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage. In boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet, write: TRUE : if the statement agrees with the information FALSE: if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN: if there is no information on this
Task description	This task requires to analyse the passage by stating whether the information given is correct, contradictory or if there is no information about the statement in the passage
Skill needed	– Scanning for specific information – Understanding factual information ( T/ F/ NG) – Understanding the writer’s views/ claims ( Y/ N/ NG)
Test taking strategies	– Read the instructions carefully and note whether you are being asked to look for facts or opinions. –  Look at all the questions and see what topics they ask about. You may note key words here, but only to identify the correct part of the text to read. – Skim the text to identify which paragraphs you need to read more closely. Note that the questions will follow the order of the text and so the answer to question 10 will follow the answer to question 11 – Mark on the question paper which paragraphs relate to which question: eg, write 11 against paragraph E – Refocus on the question and read the whole question: be careful with tricky words like “usually” – Underline the words in the text that give you the answer. This helps you concentrate and also allows you to change your mind, if you find a better answer later.

Table 4: True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given Task Description

Task instruction	Reading passage 2 has nine paragraphs A-I. From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. Write the appropriate numbers (I – XI) in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet.
Task description	The task requires categorizing or classifying each paragraph in the reading passage with suitable title, which demonstrate the main content of the paragraph.
Skill needed	– Skimming skill – Identifying the main idea of a paragraph
Test taking strategies	– Familiarise yourself with the list of paragraph headings by skimming through them quickly. – Read the instruction carefully. Note that the heading you choose should sum up the main idea of the paragraph. Also note which paragraphs you need to look at, as you are often not required to do them all. – Read through the first paragraph for which you have to find a heading. Remember that you are reading to find out the main idea of the paragraph. Concentrate on the main idea or focus of the paragraph and try not to be distracted by details or by unfamiliar vocabulary. – Choose the heading from the list which best sums up the main point of the paragraph you have just read. If you can’t choose between two headings, go on to the next paragraph, you can come back to that question later. But don’t forget to make a choice before the end of the test because if you leave a blank or you have marked two answers on your answer sheet, you will be graded as incorrect for that question.

Table 5: Matching Headings Task Description

Test-taking strategies are considered part of a complicated cognitive process that cannot be observed. As a result, there have been developed a number of techniques used to analyze and make research about test-taking strategies.

To study the test-taking strategies which are part of a complex cognitive process which cannot be observed, a number of research techniques can be employed. The following table summarizes the procedure of the five common methods with the use of verbal protocol.

Method	Description
Retrospection	The subject solves a problem and is questioned afterwards about the thought processes during the solving of a problem
Introspection	The subject is instructed to report not after completing the problem-solving task but at intermediate points chosen by the subject
Questions and prompting	The subject is questioned during the problem-solving process or may be prompted at given intervals to tell what he is thinking or doing
Dialogue observation	This method can be applied for problem-solving tasks which involve dialogue
Think aloud	The subject is asked to talk aloud while solving a problem and this request is repeated if necessary during the problem-solving process thus encouraging the subject to tell what he or she is thinking

Table 4: Common study methods of strategy ( Someren, Barnard & Sanberg, 1994).

Among all of the five methods used for studying cognitive processes, retrospection is claimed to produce the list disturbance to the participants’ cognitive process since the subjects are not interrupted during the problem-solving process (Someren, Barnard & Sandberg, 1994). The use of retrospective verbal protocol, however, has its own disadvantage since it may affect the cognitive process itself as a consequence of being aware that “ one is going to be asked questions afterwards” (Someren, Barnard & Sandberg, 1994, p25) and produce “incomplete verbalization” ( Xiangdong & Chunyan, 2012). Nevertheless, this method has been utilized in a number of second language studies to investigate students’ test-taking strategies (Wu, 1998; Weir, Hawkey, Green, & Devi, 2006; Xiangdong & Chunyan, 2012). As a result, the research uses retrospective verbal protocol as the main method of investigating.  

Overview of Learning Strategies

Cognitive process underlying readers’ performance has been a controversial topic for many scholars. There have numerous studies related to this topic, some of the outstanding researches we can name, including Hosenfeld, 1977; Block, 1986; Nevo, 1989; Block, 1992; Farr, Pritchard and Smitten, 1990; Sugirin, 1999; Ahmad and Asraf, 2004; Rupp, Ferne and Choi, 2006; Stahopoulou and Nikaki, 2009; Karbalei, 2010….

By using think-aloud protocol and follow-up oral interview, Hosenfeld (1977) illustrates clearly the close relationship between certain types of reading strategies and successful or unsuccessful readers. He indicates that poor readers or less advanced readers tend to process language according to Bottom-up model, which means the reading process is considered a text-driven decoding process wherein the sole role of the reader is to reconstruct meaning embedded in the smallest unit of the text. They tend to focus on individual words or phrases, on sequential manner of language itself. Whereas, good readers take an opposite position which considers readers’ interest, world knowledge, and reading skill as the driving force behind reading comprehension.

Applying a multi-method approach including think-aloud protocol analysis, retelling or retrospection, in-depth interviews and casual observations. Sugirin (1999) demonstrated that poor readers tend to apply bottom-up model in reading comprehension, while good readers prefer to use top-down model which consist of skimming the whole text, inferring, making association with prior knowledge, evaluating and paraphrasing. As a result, there is a significant gap in the degree of comprehension and number of used strategies among EFL readers.

In late 1990s, Block (1986) compared native and nonnative English-speaking college students using the similar procedure with the use of think-aloud protocols. The outcomes are illuminating; all participants mentioned a variety of strategies, but only a few were successful in using them to aid comprehension. The findings also suggested that readers with higher reading scores employed top-down approach by integrating new information in the text with the old information, extracting main ideas from details, referring to their background knowledge and focusing on textual meanings of the words. Readers with low scores, on the other hand, hardly employed these strategies. In another study carried out in 1992, Block used the same method of collecting data to document the comprehension-monitoring process of English readers who were then classified as proficient readers and non-proficient readers. The findings showed that proficient readers tend to assess their background knowledge and made use of context clues to figure out the meaning of the word while less proficient readers did not attempt to find out the word’s meaning and failed to identify the key words in the reading text.   

Aimed at investigating the relationship between the test-taking behaviours and reading comprehension of a group of college students, Farr, Pritchard, and Smitten (1990) employed introspective interviews and retrospective interviews after the participants completed a multiple-choice reading comprehension test. The data analysis of the study reveal interesting patterns in the test-taking behaviors with three broad categories of reading comprehension behavior which include an overall approach to the task, the specific reading strategies and test-taking strategies. The finding of the study also reported difficulties encountered by the test-takers during the process. The results of the study indicate that the most commonly used strategy utilized was using the questions to direct a search for relevant information in the text to answer the questions. Moreover, there are certain test-taking strategies that are shared among a number of language skills ( test taker prefer to read the questions first on both reading and listening comprehension tests administered in a multiple-choice format). Second, while reading strategies are generally used when readers engage in a reading activity and thus “are related to text comprehension (Singhal, 2001, p1), test-taking strategies are only used when dealing with a test and are thus more “driven by the test questions” ( Farr, Prichard, Smitten, 1990,p.218).

According to Nevo (1989), since reading test-taking represents a problem-solving situation, high proficiency test takers tend to employ strategies that increase their chance of getting question items correct to a greater extent when compared to low-level test takers. Having the same point of view, Bachman (1985) proposed that test takers who are highly proficient also exhibit skillfulness in using text-level comprehension. Phakiti (2003) once again, counts the proficiency level as another factor affecting strategy use. He suggests that high-proficiency test takers tend to exhibit more automatic use of such strategies as checking or monitoring than their low-proficiency counterparts do.

Another research on the underlying strategies employed by second language learners in comprehending both the source text and target text was conducted in 2004 by Ahmad and Araf. The author aimed at testing the hypothesis of whether there is a difference between good and average readers in their use of eight reading comprehension sub-skills. The result proposed that there were remarkable difference in strategies used by good and average readers as good readers were much more focused on each question type than average readers. The researchers suggested that to foster the learners’ ability to react “critically to text”, reading comprehension skills and vocabulary learning skills should be equipped for students.

On the whole, there have been a great number of studies concentrate on reading strategies. Most of those tried to differentiate the difference in approach used by high-proficient and low-proficient readers. However, little attention was paid to studying the reading and test taking strategies in the IELTS Test, especially some task types like Multiple Choice, True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given and Matching Headings. For this reason, the researcher decided to conduct the study on the topic “IELTS READING TEST-TAKING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY HIGH SCORE CANDIDATES IN ACADEMIC TRAINING MODULE” with primary aim at seeking the most frequent and effective used strategies for those tasks.

This chapter is going to describe in details the subjects, instruments as well as the procedure of collecting data to answer the study’s questions.

1. What test-taking strategies frequently used by Vietnam test takers in performing True/ False/ Not givenor Yes/ No/ Not given; Multiple Choice and Matching headings tasks? 
2. How are those English test-taking strategies related to test takers’ performance?
3. Is there any difference in English test-taking strategy use among successful candidates?
4. Participants and setting

In the context of IELTS test receives lots of attention of many English learners, who aim at achieving specific score to serve different purposes such as institution’s requirement, studying abroad or academic pursue, study about Reading strategies are encouraged to serve as guidance for learners. The researcher decided to follow this approach.

In order to select enough suitable participants, the study was announced widely to many subjects including teachers, students, English foreign language learners in many parts of Vietnam and having got at least 7.0 for Reading module in IELTS test taken placed at British Council or IDP centers. The respondents were mainly researchers’ friends, colleagues, and students who studying and working at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University and School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. The reason why 7.0 scorers are considered by researcher to be appropriate is according to British Council, 7.0 scorers are good users who have “operational command” of the English but only some irregular random mistakes and they have ability to comprehend complex argument.

9	Expert user	Has fully operational command of the language: appropriate, accurate and fluent with complete understanding.
8	Very good user	Has fully operational command of the language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriate words. Misunderstandings may occur in unfamiliar situations. Handles complex detailed argumentation well.
7	Good user	Has operational command of the language, though with occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriate words. Misunderstandings may occur in unfamiliar situations. Handles complex detailed argumentation well.
6	Competent user	Has generally effective command of the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriate words and misunderstandings. Can use and understand fairly complex language particularly in familiar situations.
5	Modest user	Has partial command of the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriate words and misunderstandings. Can use and understand fairly complex language particularly in familiar situations.
4	Limited user	Basic competence is limited to familiar situations. Has frequent problems in understanding and expression. Is not able to use complex language.
3	Extremely limited user	Conveys and understands only general meaning in very familiar situations. Frequent breakdowns in communication occur.
2	Intermittent user	No real communication is possible except for the most basic information using isolated words or short formulae in familiar situations and to meet immediate needs. Has great difficulty understanding spoken and written English.
1	Non user	Essentially has no ability to use the language beyond possibly a few isolated words.
0	Did not attempt the test	No assessable information provided.

Table 6: IELTS: Guide for Teachers (British Council, 2008)

The link to answer the survey’s questions on google form was sent to 37 people; thus, only 30 received feedbacks were satisfactory overall due to unqualified score. As a result, the research sample was a group of 30 people at different aged groups and fields. The primary requirements are meeting the score (at least 7.0 for Reading module) and certainly having taken the IELTS test. Of the selected participants, 21 were female and only 09 were male. The participants also had diverse experience in English learning and teaching, 16 respondents reported to be the most experienced language learners (>10 years), 8 are experienced ones (5-10 years ), and 6 are less experienced (<5 years). Generally, all participants had some familiarity with some task types: Multiple Choice, Matching Headings and True/ False/ Not Given or Yes/ No/ Not Given as they prepared to take the IELTS test. Accordingly, a survey conducted widely on high score IELTS Reading Academic module participants is revealed, lots of valuable information about the degree of adopting some specific strategies in IELTS reading skill can be gained thanks  to carrying out this investigation. After that, a thorough interview on some participants coming from different groups to have a deep understanding about why and how they followed those strategies were conducted. Some key information about 30 participants consisting of English learning experience in general and IELTS skill in particular were also concluded in the survey.

In this research, the researcher decided to choose survey and interview research methods to explore the test-taking strategies of 30 Vietnamese studying English foreign language, most of them concentrate on English language major. As a matter of fact, a mixed method study was applied. At the beginning, a survey questionnaire which consists of two sections was conducted. Section 1 includes 05 personal questions about name, sex, English learning experience, IELTS Reading score, and purposes of taking the IELTS. Section 2 comprises of 26 listed Reading strategies proposed by Farr, Pritchard and Smitten (1990), Rupp, Ferne and  Choi  (2006)  and  Cohen  &  Upton  (2007). The participants were required to tick the box according to the degree that they often follow from never to always. After that, based on the results of the survey, participants were categorized into different typical groups and selected to take part in an individual interview. In this interview, semi-structured questions were designed to ask how and why they chose to take on those approaches.

A comprehensive survey questionnaire with items relating to the participants’ age, gender, and current level of English as well as their English learning experience in general and IELTS in particular will be used to provide the researcher with a wide-ranging knowledge of the participants’ experience in learning English. Furthermore, that survey contributes greatly to the success of the research by providing an all-embracing view of the most and the least frequent strategies adopted by IELTS test takers. A great deal of interesting information can be obtained thanks to that broad survey.

At the beginning, survey questionnaire was used as the first and foremost tool to identify the strategies applied by different users.

According to Dornyei (2003), questionnaires that is a relatively limited period of time to collect data, straightforward to process and analyze the data and appropriate for providing a general understanding of the subject matter. It, hence, would be very useful for the researcher to investigate the subjects’ cognitions of PBL as well as their challenges during the process of implementation. Moreover, in order to design the questionnaire well, the researcher based on Dornyei (2003)’s framework. In detail, the general feature of questionnaires (length, layout, topic), the main parts of questionnaire (title, instructions, questionnaire items, additional information, final “thank you”), questionnaire content, closed-open ended questionnaire item were 

The findings of the study identify the IELTS test-taking strategies employed by high scorers in IELTS academic module in performing 03 different task types: True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given; Multiple Choice and Matching heading. How those strategies correlate with the performance as well as the diversities in application of each test taker are discussed in depth.

The first part of this chapter will make out the most and the least frequent used strategies by 30 experienced IELTS performers by analyzing the data collected from the survey. The second part will highlight the connection between strategy use and the result, further show the difference in strategy use among participants by taking an in depth look at the individual interview.

4.1. Reading Test-taking Strategies Used by IELTS Candidates in performing True/ False/ Not given or Yes/ No/ Not given; Multiple Choice and Matching headings tasks?

Based on the survey’s result, and according to the reviewed literature, reading strategies are classified into 3 categories: general strategies, text-related strategies and question-related strategies, the frequency of strategy use in the participants’ performances was calculated and reported in the table:

Items	General strategies	Frequency ( Reported “often” and “always” )	Percentage
1	Have a purpose of reading to answer the question only.	25	83%
2	Budget your time.	19	63.3%
3	Make predictions about what you are going to read by looking at any pictures with the text and bold word in title.	16	53,4%
4	Underline key words in the questions.	27	90%
5	Highlight important information as you read the text.	28	93,3 %
6	Look for key words in the questions and words and phrases with similar and related meanings in the texts, look for a paraphrase of each statement.	28	93,3 %
7	Scan quickly for numbers, names, dates and words around it to get the answers.	19	63.3%
8	Remember that the questions follow the order of the passage.	19	63.3%
9	Don’t try to read every word	18	60%
10	Try to summarize after you read.	8	26.6%
	Text-related strategies
11	Read the first sentence of each paragraph for main idea.	12	40%
12	Look for how the text is organized and ignore details.	12	40%
13	Try to predict where the author’s points are leading.	15	50%
14	Get the gist of each paragraph.	17	56.6%
15	Pay special attention to the first part of the passage	11	36.7%
16	Find short sentences within paragraphs	2	6.7%
17	Form ideas about the text while reading.	19	63.4%
18	Relate what you read to what you already know.	18	60%
19	Look for context clues for the meaning of unfamiliar or difficult word.	27	90%
	Question-related strategies
20	Answer the questions you know first.	17	56.7%
21	Avoid answers that are too specific or too broad.	11	36.7%
22	Always look for answers that sound consistent with the idea in the text.	19	63.3%
23	Guess the meaning of any word in the stem you do not know.	17	56.7%
24	Use prior knowledge to answer questions.	03	10%
25	Guess if you cannot find the answer.	19	63.3%
26	Make sure you find evidence in the text to answer the question, try not to use what you think is true.	19	63.3%

Table 1 represents the strategies employed by IELTS candidates and the frequency with which they were attended to. On the whole, “highlighting important information as you read the text” and “looking for key words in the questions and words and phrases with similar and related meanings in the texts” are the two most frequent used strategies, which account for 96,6 % of the respondents. It is quite related to the teaching guidance of many lecturers for students as many respondents when being interviewed said that they often underlined the key word or significant information when they read in order to find the answers easier. Moreover, one of the most crucial tips was to locate similar words and phrases in the text which had the same meaning with those in the questions.

The second reported to be frequent used strategies, which make of 90% of total responses consist of “Looking for context clues for the meaning of unfamiliar or difficult word” and “Underlining key words in the questions.” The data collected from the interview also strongly support this conclusion.

P1: I often read the words or phrases before and after the word that I don’t know to figure out the meaning of that word because I think they often explain or indicate some information related to that word.

P2: When I do not know the exact meaning of a new word I often look for context clues, which will certainly provide some information about this one.

P3: Context plays a crucial role in helping readers guess the meaning of the word that they do not know. I always follow this strategy.

P4: The first step to answer any type of question is looking at the question and then underlining the key word. My teacher often requires us to do this step, as a result, now I am familiar with it.

P5: In any type of question, I always read the questions first and pay attention or remember or even underline the key word in the questions.

P6: Identifying key word in the question is really crucial to know what information I have to find in the text.

Weir, Hawkey, Green, & Devi, (2006) also stated that key word identifying was employed by all participants as the main test-taking strategy. This strategy appeared to be effective in helping the participants locate the relevant information for the answers.

On the contrary, some strategies prove not to be efficient with the majority of participants. Only 6.7% and 10% of all participants reported that they “sometimes” use “Finding short sentences within paragraphs” and “Using prior knowledge to answer questions” respectively during doing an IELTS Reading task. When being asked why they do not apply these strategies, interviewees replied that “it is a waste of time to find short sentences within a paragraph and often short sentences carry unimportant information at all” (P7). Moreover, according to most of them, “it is wrong to apply prior knowledge to answer reading questions but only base on the information in the text” (P13).  Some said that only when they could not find the answers in the text, would they utilize previous understanding to answer questions because in many situations the knowledge does not match with the information in the text (P2, P20, P23, P30).

Items	Strategies	Frequency ( Reported “sometimes”)	Percentage
16	Find short sentences within paragraphs	2	6.7%
24	Use prior knowledge to answer questions.	03	10%

Generally, it appears that there are some strategies which are widely used in many task types because they are the basic and necessary ones such as “reading the questions first” and “underlining the key words in the questions”. Almost all the readers advised IELTS test-takers to take a look at the questions first instead of reading the text immediately in order to know what they are being asked about. In all 3 types of questions: Multiple choice, T/F/ NG or Y/N/NG, and Matching Headings, all of 6 interviewees when being asked to describe the step to do the tasks, reported they often did these two above strategies beforehand. Similarly, 83.3% of participants have the “purpose of reading the text to answer the question only”. It is quite easy to understand since this is the test, the more correct answers they get, the higher score they have. The others most popular strategies are “highlighting important information as you read the text” and “looking for key words in the questions and words and phrases with similar and related meanings in the texts” and “looking for context clues for the meaning of unfamiliar or difficult word”. In contrast, standing at the bottom of the most preferred approaches are “Finding short sentences within paragraphs” and “Using prior knowledge to answer questions”. “Looking for how the text is organized and ignoring details” also receive little attention of readers.

To test the above mentioned research questions, the following hypothesis can be stated.

For the first research question, the most frequent test taking strategy has to be found out. Here, analysis has to be done on the variables “general strategies”, “Text-related strategies” and “question-related strategies”.

At first, descriptive statistic analysis has been done for the variable purpose of the study. In this variable, there are three outcomes. The student is taking the test to satisfy the requirements of his/her institution, Student is taking the test to study abroad and some other unspecified reason. The data has been categorized numerically by denoting “satisfy the requirements of your institution” as 1, “study abroad” as 2 and “others” as 3.

A frequency distribution table of the variable has been made. From the table is can be seen that 46.7% of the students take the ILETS test for the help of the institution. 46.7% of the students take the test for some other unspecified purposes and only 6.7% of the students take the test to study abroad. Thus, from the table it can be stated clearly that, the most common test taking strategy is to study for the improvement of the institution. This has also been shown with the help of the pie chart.

Figure showing pie chart for purpose of the test

The three test taking strategies described in the data are general strategies, text related strategies and question related strategies. To find out the most frequently used test strategy, mode of the three strategies has been found out. The strategy with the highest mode is the most frequently used strategy. Here, general strategy contains 10 questions. The median of all the question ratings are considered. Similarly, for text-related strategies and question related strategies, the middlemost value or the median of the question ratings are considered for analysis. The ratings given by the teachers to each of the 10 questions for general strategies are arranged in ascending order. Then the middlemost value in that arrangement are considered as the median. This value gives an appropriate measure to represent all the values of the 10 questions. This has been found for each of the 30 teachers. Similarly middlemost values for the other two strategies, text related strategies and question related strategies have been found out to represent all the questions under one variable head.

The rating with the highest frequency (mode) for all the three strategies are found to be 4. Maximum teachers give rating of 4 to all the 3 strategies. Thus, all the three strategies are equally important. None of the strategies are more important than the other.

The hypothesis for the second research question can be stated as follows:

Research Question: How are those English test-taking strategies related to students’ test performance?

Null Hypothesis (H₀₁): The English test-taking strategies are related to the student’s test performance.

Alternate Hypothesis (H_A1): The English test-taking strategies are not related to the student’s test performance.

This hypothesis can be tested with the help of linear regression. With the help of the regression it is very clear that the factors of the students test taking strategies such as general strategies, text-related strategies and question-related strategies can explain only 4.8% of the student’s test performance. The students test performance has been estimated by using the ILETS score. From the regression summary table it can be seen that the significance values of the strategies are greater than the level of significance (0.05). Thus, it can be said that the variables are independent. They do not have much effect in explaining the dependent variable ILETS score.

The relation between the students test taking strategies and their scores are given as below:

ILETS Score = 7.637 + (0.217 * General Strategies) – (0.207 * Text Related Strategies) – (0.079 * Question Related Strategies).

This equation will give a prediction of the ILETS score but the prediction can be only 4.8% accurate as the test taking strategies are independent of the student’s performance. Among these three strategies, general strategies has maximum influence towards the ILETS score. It can be said that the sample size for the analysis is found to be very less. A sample size of 30 is not appropriate to represent the views of total population of teachers in the country. If a larger number of sample size is taken, the analysis might give positive results to represent the total population.

The relations between the ILETS score and the test taking strategies can be expressed with the help of the following scatter plots. The scatterplots show very weak relation between the variables. The increase or decrease in the ratings of the strategies do not affect the student’s performance.

Model Summary
Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.219a	.048	-.062	.6899
a. Predictors: (Constant), Question_related_strategies, Text_related_strategies, General_Strategies

ANOVAa
Model	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	.626	3	.209	.438	.727b
Residual	12.374	26	.476
Total	13.000	29
a. Dependent Variable: ILETS_Score
b. Predictors: (Constant), Question_related_strategies, Text_related_strategies, General_Strategies

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	T	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	7.637	.440		17.358	.000
General_Strategies	.217	.196	.445	1.105	.279
Text_related_strategies	-.207	.255	-.319	-.811	.424
Question_related_strategies	-.079	.228	-.131	-.348	.730
a. Dependent Variable: ILETS_Score

Research Question: Is there any difference in English test-taking strategy use among successful candidates?

Null Hypothesis (H₀₁): There is no difference in the English test taking strategies used among successful candidates.

Alternate Hypothesis (H_A1): There is significant difference in the English test taking strategies used among successful candidates.

The above stated hypothesis can be tested by using ANOVA. ANOVA or the analysis of variance technique is the most appropriate technique to test the significant differences between the variables.

From the ANOVA table, it is clear that the significance values for general strategies, text-related strategies and question related strategies are 0.061, 0.072 and 0.107 respectively. All these significance values are greater than the 95% level of significance (0.05) at which level the test has been conducted. Thus, the null hypothesis has been accepted. Thus, it can be stated clearly that, there is no difference in the English test taking strategies used among successful candidates.

ANOVA
	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
General_Strategies	Between Groups	16.035	4	4.009	2.585	.061
Within Groups	38.765	25	1.551
Total	54.800	29
Text_related_strategies	Between Groups	8.682	4	2.171	2.453	.072
Within Groups	22.118	25	.885
Total	30.800	29
Question_related_strategies	Between Groups	9.001	4	2.250	2.126	.107
Within Groups	26.466	25	1.059
Total	35.467	29

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