Thesis+7

flat Running head: //Add the first few words of your title (Anywhere from five to seven words).//
 * Ruth**

Title of your paper.

Author's name

Institution

Date Note: The title page begins your thesis and should include a running head, the title of your paper, your name, institution, and date.

**Abstract** Note: The abstract is on a separate page and is a 120-word summary of your thesis. That is, an abstract should include the problem, purpose, method, and findings of your research.

**Title** The way students prepare for standardized tests has implications for the test's validity. A review of the literature reveals that studies have focused on classroom activities but few considered students' attitudes towards the test preparation and the extent to which these stem from their educational background (Roberts, 2000, abstract). People all around the word is taking standardized test with different purposes and characteristics, but all of them want to achieve certain goal, certain score. “In English Language Teaching standardized tests have been improved in recent years, yet they necessarily remain limited by our current notions of language proficiency, by the nature of testing itself, and, especially, by how language professionals choose to use the results" (Asociación Nacional Universitaria de Profesores de Inglés, A.C. [ANUPI], 2007). Standardized test are use in many universities as a requirement to get a graduate degree, it is when they take the role of High Stakes test, when it happens student try harder to reach the scores institutions ask for. The aim in the research is what students are doing to prepare for test application and to get the score they require; private institute classes, specialize preparation manuals in English, specialize preparation manuals in the target language, authentic English materials. (Roberts, 2000, p.38) Because of the importance (in many institutions) of getting certain score in standardized tests, students and teachers should be aware of which are the best ways of preparation for it, without decreasing the importance of other evaluation aspects and activities that also show and increase pupils' improvement.

One of the earliest recorded test is the shibborleth test. After a military battle between two neighbouring ethnic groups, members of the vanquished group attempted to escape by blending in with their culturally and linguistically very similar victors. But they have a difference, the words beginning with a sibilant sound. The victor pronounced such words with an [sh] sound, the vanquished with the sound [s] so the word **“**shibboleth” was used as a single item language test by the victorious group in order to detect the enemy. (p. 68) The consequence of failing that test was fatal. By now the consequences of failing a high stakes test are not that big but of course students consider this situation a big deal in their careers, especially when their need certain scores to get their graduated degree. According to Roberts (2000) "given the importance of the test, it would be obvious that the test has a significant impact in how students approach language learning." In this sense the importance that a high stake standardized test take in a student career grow and take a very important role in the way they study. Nowadays there are several organizations that have gotten to reach an international acknowledgement. Some of them are Cambridge, ETS (Educational Testing Service), BULATS (Business Language Testing Service) and Pearson. In Mexico one of the most known testing service organization is ETS, ETS has in its catalog one of the most popular English standardized test, the TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language). According to the web page of ETS TOEFL test is the most widely respected English-language test in the world, recognized by more than 8,500 colleges, universities and agencies in more than 130 countries. . In ANUPI’s panel (2007) it is presented a very common situation: Finally, you have finished your major and you are doing the best to finish it well. There are a lot of people waiting for you to graduate. However, your school records indicate that you have not complied with your major’s language requirement. Unless you get the score institution asks for in the standardized test they apply. There will be no graduation and of course there will be no graduate degree. It is important for universities to provide to the society professionals with the best preparation for their development in work. “The idea behind these language requirements is to ensure that students have the basic language skills in order to function in their academic and professional lives” (ANUPI, 2007). And they are really accomplishing their goal, the effects of failing, or with more appropriate words of not getting the required score, are essential for students; furthermore those who are about to finish the degree, because if they do not get the required score then they would not have their graduate degree so they have less changes to get a good job. Almost all participants in the research reported that they prepared by attending to private institutes and on their own; preparation manuals were an important part of the participants' preparation practices; some participants used preparation manuals written in their native language while others used preparation manuals in English only; some participants said that authentic English materials were part of their preparation practices. After mentioning which are the most popular preparation ways, it is basic to get to know the reasons why students prefer this kind of preparation. Roberts found according to the participants in his research that **“**The manuals offer a lot of practice with the grammar, reading and listening skills that the test focuses on, and the participants believed that this is an efficient way of learning these appropriate language skills.” Moreover participants in Roberts research mention that the strategies presented in manuals help a lot to improve scores in standardized test. Nowadays most of the people around the world have access to Anglophone TV programs, radios stations, news, music, etc. All these kinds of sources are call Authentic Materials when their purpose is to improve English development. According to Roberts’ participants (2000) authentic materials help to improve the results in standardized even though they are not related to the tests. Talking about the courses that prepare students for standardized tests they are related to the previous mention manuals. Most of the courses are based or have in their foundation a manual. Courses and manuals have more or less the same structure, both divide the learning by skills and provide with strategies and samples of the exam. The main difference between the courses and the manuals is the way they are managed. Manuals can be managed by students themselves while the course is conduct by a teacher. Teachers in courses for standardized test can be native of non-native English speaker, in the research conducted by Roberts in 2000 students have a big tendency to the non-native speaker, “non-native teachers can do a better job at giving the necessary test-taking skills and strategies to achieve a high TOEFL score.” There are a lot of strategies that talk about the time you spend in answering the test, of course many of them refers to be careful with it. “Use your time wisely. You must work very quickly and efficiently to finish all f the questions in the time you are allowed” (Mahnke and B. Duffy, 1996, p.12). Time would give test takers the opportunity of get a better score or not, lack of time would unable participants to answer some questions or it would allow them to check some difficult ones. This is the reason why time is the main character in more than one strategy. The other main characteristic is the multiple choice format, it gives another guideline to strategies. “If you don’t know the answer to a question, **guess.** There is not penalty for guessing. You have a twenty-five percent chances of guessing the correct answer to each question” (Mahnke and B. Duffy, 1996, p.12). Of course guessing is not an option for all the questions, test takers should limit the guessing strategies to questions that they really do not know. It is not possible to get an appropriate score by guessing all the answers. Succeed is a combination of both knowledge and strategies, Beare has mentioned: As you have probably noticed, some students are more successful than others when taking such an examination. Often the more successful students are better prepared. However, sometimes students who do well have better test taking skills. These abilities really have nothing to do with understanding English better. They are strategic skills that make taking the test easier, and therefore provide better results. In this article Beare show some of guidelines that would help to improve the results in English standardized tests, of course in Beare´s strategies would be included the ones about time and guessing. The seven strategies that Beare give are: These kinds of strategies or guidelines would help a lot but they are not the key of success, test takers should have already certain level of English knowledge to succeed in the test. for this reason English specialized courses for standardized test would include both the strategies and development of activities that would improve the English level of students. Usually the English proficiency is evaluated or assessed by standardized test. According to Stephenson, A., Johnson D. F., Jorgensen M. A. Young M. J. (2003) Proficiency is often referred to as if it were a uniform state attainable by most students in a specifically defined time frame. Attaining language proficiency is not a neat process—language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) can be acquired at very different rates with spikes and plateaus during the learning. One way of asses the language proficiency of students apart from the typical standardized test is by a formative evaluation. According to Margo Gottlieb in a discussion about her book Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges From Language Proficiency to Academic Achievement; “formative information needs to complement that large scale that is used for academic assessments”. The Formative assessment would complement the results that standardized test present respect the language proficiency of many students who require a evident prove of their good English development. There are changes that it is necessary to find in education, according to the Society for Research into Higher Education It is expected qualitative changes occur in students, so assess should change qualitatively. There is evidence that assessment procedures frequently fail to do what expected them to do. Instead they have a negative effect on the quality of students thinking. All too frequently what is really test is the accurate reproduction of parts of topic or even just terminology. Students’ development is not just what they got in an test, it is also all the process they have lived during the B.A. All the knowledge they got can’t be reflect in the score of a standardized test. Research Questions What elements are the most use students take in consideration to prepare a High Stake Exam? Which are the tools students from the B.A in English Language teacher use to prepare themselves for a High stakes Exam? How do students prepare for a high stakes test outside the university? How is the preparation, students take for TOEFL, helping them?
 * Implication of using standardized test as high stakes test.**
 * The use of English standardized tests as high stakes test.** One of the terms that would constantly use in the research is standardized test, for this reason it is very important to clearly define what it is: a standardized tests specify where, when, how and for how long test takers may respond to the test; also, such test must meet strict standards of reliability and validity in construction. (Asociación Nacional Universitaria de Profesores de Inglés, A.C. [ANUPI], 2007). It is also very important to mention that a standardized test is not always use as a high stakes test. According to the web page wiseGeek.com a standardized test is considered a high stake test when the outcome is used as the sole determining factor for making a major decision. In the case of English standardized tests they are used with two main purposes, they help institutions to get to know the students’ English level so they can assign them to certain study group, or also they are use, as a high stake test, to determine if the student can get her/his graduate degree. But this situation is not something new, McNamara (2000) mentions in one of his works that:
 * Different kinds of English standardized tests.** In the world there is a big necessity of evaluate the English proficiency of non-native speakers, for this reason there are many organizations specialize in creating standardized test that full fill the needs of certain countries, organization or simply the purpose of the test application. The variety of the English standardized test in the world should be enormous for that reason by now they will be narrow into the most famous ones.
 * Effects of using English standardized tests as High stakes test.** Testing is a very wide term that has been discussed for many authors, it is a process that has a lot of implications. According to Herman and Golegan (1991) testing provide a variety of arguments. First testing gives meaningful standards that can aspire students, teachers and school to get better results. Second test data can be used as feedback to get improvement. Third testing helps to give everyone accountable results of studies. Finally it can promote changes in educational actions. Testing should be seen like something that would improve the development of every one in an institution. Testing as high stake may change the situation from beneficial to unfavorable, when students do not get the desire scores.
 * Practices students can implement to improve High Stakes Tests scores.**
 * Get to know the most use methods** There is a world in each head, every person use and have different preferences and attitudes, based on this persons can choice the best way to study and prepare for certain situations. Preparing a test is one of the clearest examples, every person has a method to succeed. Some of the most constant methods students use to prepare for an English standardized test according to Roberts (2000) are:
 * Strategies use in English standardized tests.** There are a lot of different kinds of English standardized tests, and also there are many strategies that could help to improve the scores in those tests. However standardized test are not complete different one from another, probably they don’t have the same content but they have the same bases. They have certain time to be answer and they are designed as a multiple choice test. These two characteristics gives test takers much more in what to think, also they give the advantage of create strategies to reduce the stress they cause.
 * Do not insist on completing each question before going to the next.
 * If possible, go through the entire test answering the questions you are sure you know.
 * Go through the test a second time working out the answers to more difficult questions.
 * Once you have gone through the test twice, see if any of the questions asked can help you answer those really difficult questions.
 * If you have a strong feeling about a question when you first answer it, don't go back and change it later.
 * Play the odds
 * Do not cheat!
 * Aspects to consider in students' development apart from standardized tests**
 * English proficiency.** According to the web page www.education.com the Language proficiency is a measurement of how well an individual has mastered a language. Proficiency is measured in terms of receptive and expressive language skills, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, and other areas that demonstrate language abilities. But what really matters is to know how it could help students in their graduate processes. It could represent and element for better graduation conditions for students in a B.A.
 * Students' school development.** By the end of a B.A all the efforts students did, during about four to five years, seem to have not importance. Much students in Mexican Universities face this problem. As mentioning before students try to do their best to obtain their graduate degree, by the end of their studies, besides all the final works they have to prepare the exit requirements university present. English standardized test is one of these requirements and many students are failing the test.

**Method (Approx. 500 words)** At Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes TOEFL test has taken the role of High Stake test. Students from the B.A in English Language Teaching must obtain a score of 550 so they can get their graduate degree. The participants in this research are three students from this B.A. in the eighth semester, the group was chosen because they are about to finish the B.A and they need to get the score as soon as possible. They took the institutional TOEFL during their fifth semester for the first time and they did a second try but they did not get it either. Another aspect took in consideration was that these students actually have a good fulfillment in all the subjects they have taken during the B.A. and they are just having problems with the TOEFL test. For this research there were two different instruments which were designed specially to analyze the participants, but also it was used information about the academic life of the participants. The first instruments was a questionnaire that help to develop the selection of the 3 students in the research, after the selection students were interviewed about the things they are doing to prepare for a new application of the test. The academic information analyzed was the students’ grades during the career, the courses they took to increase their English proficiency, inside and outside the university, if this last does exist
 * Participants**
 * Instruments**
 * Procedure**

The first step was to find out which students, from the B.A. in English Language Teaching in the eighth semester, had not gotten the require score in TOEFL. There was a group of twenty gays, those twenty students answered a questionnaire that helped to find the most appropriate participants for the research. Some of the aspect took in consideration for the selection were: 1. How many times students had taken institutional TOEFL, 2. Students grades during the B.A. and 3. If they attended the Propedeutico year. When it was found the students with the appropriate characteristics they were interviewed to know all the details of their preparation for a next application. There was also an interview for some teachers in the B.A. with this interview it was discovered some of the characteristic and problems participants present in some classes, which can affect their development in the test. By the end of the research there was an TOEFL application that was develop as an institutional test it helped to discover if the preparation participation took was appropriate to improve their scores in this high stake test. This research was developed as a Case study, there was a selection from students in the eighth semester of the B.A. in English Language teaching. Besides it is a qualitative research, the selected students gave access to their students life in relation to the TOEFL test.
 * Research Design**

**Results and Discussion** The results are the findings of your research. The discussion is your conclusion of your findings. Make sure you have a good mix between results and discussion – not too much of one while sacrificing the other. Provide visuals when doing so makes it easier to understand the data (e.g., graphs, tables, etc.).

**References**
 * Asociación Nacional Universitaria de Profesores de Inglés, A.C. (2007).**

**Gettin to know standardized testes of English language: CELE UNAM language tests,**

**ELASH, TOEFL IBT (Data file). Retrieved from**

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Golan, S. &Herman, J.L. (1991).

Effects of standardized testing on teachers and learning-Another look. Retrieved from

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**Lemus, M. E., Duran, K., & Martínez, M., (2008)**

**El nivel de inglés y su problematica en tres universidades de México geograficamente diferentes. Retrieved from**

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Mc.Namara, T. (2000). Language testing. Oxford NY: Oxford University Press

Society for Research into Higher Education (1988). Standards and criteria in higher education. Moodie, G. C. (Eds.). Milton Keynes England: Open University Press

Roberts, M. (2000).

An examination of the way group of Korean language learners prepare for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Retrieved from

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