[托福常見問題] 同學們知不知道ETS於4/23晚間(22:00~00:00)舉辦了第二場的英文日慶祝活動，並在Facebook上開放了一場全球性的線上聊天活動。任何有關於托福或是英文學習的相關問題都可以盡情提問，而ETS也在活動中相當即時地給予大家官方的回應喔~
Eric老師昨晚也幫同學發問了一些問題，在這邊將老師和ETS的談話內容提供給各位，同時老師針對ETS的回答也有一些評語，希望對大家有幫助。
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問題1. ETS has mentioned that the additional/experimental sets in the listening and reading sections do not count toward a student's score. However, are they used to "weigh" the difficulty of the sets? Students typically just memorize the answers to these so what is the purpose of having these sets? Can someone offer us a complete and direct explanation?
ETS之前有提過在考題中會有實驗性的聽力和閱讀類題組，而這些考題並不會被列入評分，然而，這些考題的存在是被設定來評估測驗的難易度嗎? 能不能夠藉此機會提供一些完整、直接的解釋呢?
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ETS的回覆1. The extra questions are used for two main reasons. First, they help with a process called equating, which helps make sure the scoring of the test is fair. Second, they are used to evaluate the questions for future tests.
實驗性題組的設計主要是有兩個目的: 第一，這些題組協助我們評估考試的難易度，這樣才能確保測驗的評分是公平的；第二，它們被用來評估哪一些考題適合出現在未來的考試。
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Comment: Some students feel that certain sets of reading are more difficult than others because they truly are. However, ETS will adjust the scoring according to the response. The problem is, some students memorize the answers while others do not, and this may skew the data in certain local regions.That is, the scores of these additional sets do not always reflect students’ true abilities, and this may affect the process of “equating” on a local scale. Since the equating algorithm is not available to the public, it is difficult to judge whether the additional sets serve their intended purposes.
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問題2. In the speaking section, students are able to hear the answers of others before they begin as they do not start their exams at the same time. Does this give some an unfair advantage? How does this affect the reliability of the test?
就口說測驗來說，今天如果考生沒有在同一個時間開始進行測驗的話，在過程中，時間的落差就會讓部分考生在進入測驗之前就先聽到其他考生的答案了。這種狀況可能會讓那些考生在應答之前就得到了一些不太公平的優勢，這是否多少會影響到考試的測驗信度 (test reliability)?
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ETS的回覆2. While there may be a bit of a time difference between the start times of the test sections, it would actually be a disadvantage for a test taker to try to repeat someone else's answer that they are hearing from another testing station, because it is highly unlikely that they could still speak naturally, and the rater would recognize this. Test takers should keep their noise-canceling headphones on and focus on their own test to do their best.
在考試過程中，也許有一些考生在各個部份的作答時間上有落差，但是對於一位考生而言，要在短時間內去重覆另外一位考生的答題內容，其實是蠻吃力的，甚至在答題的內容可能都沒辦法像原先那麼自然了。再者，針對那樣的答案，測驗的評核者也可以辨別得出來，所以，考生還是必須要讓自己全程好好戴著耳機，專注面對眼前的考題，盡全力應答。
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Comment: As we stated in class, students should rely on their abilities and not testing tricks to gain a high score. Listening to other students' responses may help a few but also hurt others. When students hear the response of another test taker, they essentially hear fragments of a complete answer. Attempts to replicate the response under great stress can be disastrous as students may not be able to support their replicated answer with ease.
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問題3. It is commonly believed that template answers for the independent writing task are sometimes accepted by graders. Can you give us some feedback on this issue? The provided rubrics do not clearly address the issue.
大部分的考生都還是相信針對獨立寫作的模板解答有時候還是會被ETS的評分員接受，能不能夠藉此機會針對這個議題提供一些看法?畢竟，在官方所提供的評分標準內容中並未清楚地解釋這個部份。
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ETS的回覆3.Raters are trained to recognize so-called template answers and score them accordingly, because template answers will not match the requirements in the rubrics.
ETS的評分人員有受過訓練，可以清楚辨別所謂的模板答案，從而進行評分，因為模板類型的答題方式其實並不符合ETS的作答要求。
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Comment: It is taught in our classes that long-winded templates will not be accepted by either our teachers or ETS graders. However, the general structure and organization of persuasive essays (e.g. the five-paragraph approach) can still be referred to, especially for beginning students. In fact, since elementary school, students in the US are groomed to use the five-paragraph approach to address most writing prompts. This standard approach is also taught by most undergraduate English composition courses in Taiwan as it is the backbone of academic English writing. Students are also often encouraged to use so-called academic words, phrases, and sentence patterns in their essays as long as they fit the context of the text. These lexical resources and syntactic patterns are accepted, and even welcomed, provided that they strengthen the coherence and cohesion of the essay and add new information to the text. Nevertheless, students should never write verbose "canned responses" as the lexical resources present in these answers are often unrelated to given prompts. It is also inadvisable to rely on just one writing approach (e.g. the five-paragraph method), as students may be unable to find enough supporting ideas (e.g. three reasons in a five-paragraph essay) in stressful timed exams.Test takers might also encounter argumentative, descriptive, or even compare and contrast questions, none of which mandate the use of a five-paragraph approach. Hence, it is the responsibility of the writer to learn a variety of approaches and use one that best supports his or her claims in the given time frame.
ETS Writing Rubrics: https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_writing_rubrics.pdf
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完整的Q&A: http://goo.gl/35tpLj
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