Chapter 28 Assessing Students' Grammatical Ability

underpin a user's communicative language ability in the written medium" (p. 4). 

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Assessing Students' Grammatical Ability 
Similarly, in the Internet•based TOEFL (iBT), there is no separate grammar test; 
candidates are awarded a composite score based on their performances in the four main 
skill areas. However, a substantial part of the Paper-based TOEFL (PBT) is devoted to 
grammar in the "Structure and Language" section of the exam. 
Finally, the design of appropriate 
test tasks 
or 
test methods 
to elicit samples of per• 
formance that represent students' 
grammatical knowledge 
cannot be over-emphasized. In 
addition to the large number of factors that might negatively affect a student's performance 
on a test (e.g., personal attributes, language background, and motivation), "some of the most 
important factors that affect grammar
-
test scores, aside from 
grammatical ability, 
are the 
characteristics of the test itselr' (Purpura, 2004: I 00). For instance, it would be remiss of a 
test designer to create a test solely of traditional three- or four-option multiple-choice ques­
tions if the aim was to assess the extent to which test takers could actually use grammatical 
structures in given contexts rather than simply recognize them. 
In terms of 
test method effect, 
Weir (2005) also points out that "the choice you 
make about format will critically affect the cognitive processing that the task will illicit" 
and that "you have to be certain that the technique you choose does not adversely