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Unit 15 talks about how students' language levels are assessed and about different kinds of exams that are administered towards students who are learning English. However, the article had a stronger defense on the information regarding the exams that are given to the students. From my experience, as was said in this unit, the norm is for teachers to give regular short exams and to end the term with a longer exam. I believe that placement exams are important because they will determine what information each student knows before taking the language course, as well as the level of each student. Even if a student is taking a language course for the first time, not every student could start out at a basic level since some students probably might have been exposed or had practiced the target language before. I agree that formal testing is based on exams that deal with memory, but if teachers want to see how much the students have retained and what they have forgotten, every now and then progress tests should be implemented. These exams involve reading, writing, speaking, and listening. From my experience, formal testing only dealt with multiple choice questions, filling in the blanks, and short reading and listening sections. To make sure students are actually acquiring and demonstrating that they will be able to manage the language on a daily basis, it is important for them to be able to read and write critically, as well as having authentic conversations and listening to authentic documents such as news, debates or political conversations. Practice tests are also essential because they help the students practice and prepare for longer challenging exams such as the TOEFL.
