Table of Contents
BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 553
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 553
READING PASSAGE – 2
COMPUTER PROGRAMS PASS JUDGMENT ON STUDENTS’ WRITING
A. The Educational Testing Service, which designs and grades the GMAT and other widely used standardized tests, said its e-rater program comes within one point of a human grader 98 percent of the time, using the six-point scale that is now a common approach to grading essays on standardized tests.
If there is a difference of more than one point between the scores of the computer and a human evaluator, the essay is read by another person and the three scores are averaged. ETS, which began using e-rater to grade the test two years ago, has cut its GMAT costs by US $1. 7 million a year because graders now have to read fewer essays. The organization can also return scores to test takers in ten days, instead of four weeks it used to take.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
B. But Sam Graziano, who took the GMAT last month, wasn’t thrilled to learn that a computer would evaluate his writing, and thereby help decide whether he is admitted to a top business school. “I’m a computer science major, and it’s kind of hard for me to understand an algorithm that could grade an essay,” said Graziano. “At this time, I wouldn’t really trust it.”
C. Another essay-grading program, called IntelliMetric, is muscling its way into the standardized testing industry. And Accuplacer is a new program that decides the appropriate course level for incoming college students. The programs take different approaches to their task. But they all use a database of essays that have been graded by humans. The programs are smart enough, according to their inventors, to recognize what characteristics correspond to higher scores.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
D. ETS’s e-rater focuses mostly on how an essay is written, not its meaning. For example, it looks for cue words – such as “however,” “because,” and “therefore that are key to framing an argument. It also looks for variety in the arrangement of phrases, clauses, and sentences. And to recognize whether an essay is on topic, it looks for certain words based on the previously graded essays in its database. The Intelligent Essay Assessor is geared more toward the content of a composition.
The program is primed by feeding it a batch of essays already graded by humans, or text that serves as the basis for the essays, such as a history or science book. The program analyzes the relationships between the words, looking for patterns. It recognizes how the words fit together-for example, it recognizes that “the doctor operated on the patient” is similar to “the surgeon wielded the scalpel.” In that way, its creators say, the Intelligent Essay Assessor comes to understand the words. It can then compare that meaning with the essays to be graded.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
E. “It isn’t as simple as looking at which words occur together,” said Thomas Landauer, a University of Colorado professor who has done research on the technology. “It’s a much deeper process than that.” The Intelligent Essay Assessor, Landauer said, is best at evaluating answers in fact-filled subjects, such as science and history. The program can look at a student’s essay and decide what points are missing. A study that compared essays written under the program’s tutelage with those written without such help concluded that the computer-aided essays were consistently better.
F. The programs do have their limits. They can’t deal with creativity, such as metaphors or unconventional writing styles. If confronted by quirks, the computer is supposed to alert its handlers that the essay is unusual and needs to be read by a human. The e-rater also can be fooled. For example, if the word “therefore” is one of the words it’s looking for, it will probably give the writer credit for using it even if it’s the first word in the essay, said Marisa Farnum, a writing assessment specialist at ETS.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
A teacher, on the other hand, might consider such a use of “therefore” completely inappropriate and penalize the student for it. Some professors, such as William Dowling at Rutgers, think the programs will be unable to process students’ more complex and original writing. Dennis Baron, the head of the English department at the University of Illinois in Urbana, has the opposite fear: It won’t be able to get past a student’s weaknesses.
Questions 14-19
READING PASSAGE 2 has six paragraphs A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-Fin boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
14. The restrictions of the newly introduced programs.
15. Some doubt has been expressed about the new technology.
16. A reference to its effectiveness in assessing fact-filled disciplines.
17. How essays are specifically rated by electronic programs.
18. Results are delivered in shorter periods.
19. A common resource that are used by all the grading programs.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
Questions 20-26
Do the following statements agree with the information given in READING PASSAGE 2?
In boxes 20-26 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
20. The e-raters could reduce costs spent on grading essays each year.
21. The programs are identical in terms of the methods they take to evaluate the essays.
22. The scores given by the programs are accepted by most American universities.
23. The way an essay is prepared is more emphasized than the information it conveys.
24. Cue words are the centre of modern essay writing.
25. Subjects dealing with facts are the most appropriate areas for the application of the programs.
26. Machines prove to be perfect in rating essays and would give due penalties to students for mistakes made in the essays.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
IELTS Academic Reading Test
ANSWERS
14. F
15. B
16. E
17. D
18. A
19. C
20. TRUE
21. FALSE
22. NOT GIVEN
23. TRUE
24. NOT GIVEN
25. TRUE
26. NO
IELTS Academic Reading Test