Premium
Testing grammatical competence: English examinations in an Indian university
Author(s) -
KRISHNAKUMAR K.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.1987.tb00206.x
Subject(s) - grammar , linguistics , language assessment , competence (human resources) , psychology , philosophy , social psychology
This paper considers the nature and types of questions that are asked on English grammar in various undergraduate examinations of an Indian university. On the basis of data drawn from 28 question papers, it is shown that a large number of questions are vague, ambiguous, ineffective, and are occasionally couched in ungrammatical language. They thus defeat the very objective of the tests.