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Test Specifications
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Language Arts Literacy

Skills Specifications
| Writing | Reading |  Listening | Viewing  | Speaking |

Listening  (p. 18)
Through active listening, students gain an understanding and appreciation of language and communication. Students taking the ESPA will listen to a story; students taking the GEPA and the HSPA will listen to an episode from a biography/autobiography. All three assessments will then ask students to answer multiple-choice questions and respond to open-ended questions. Questions will be based on those skills that active listeners use to understand, analyze, and assess what they hear.

Appropriate background information will be supplied in print and read aloud to the students prior to the presentation of the listening text.

Students will be assessed on their ability to interpret and analyze/critique the content, meaning, and organization of the spoken text.

Students will:

  • recognize a theme or central idea.
  • recognize details that support and develop the theme or central idea.
  • extrapolate relevant information.
  • paraphrase, retell, or interpret words, phrases, or sentences of the text.
  • make tentative predictions of meaning.
  • make judgments, form opinions, and draw conclusions from the text.
  • interpret aural conventions of speech. (See Macro 3.2 in Appendix D.)
Notes:
1.    Background information will be on the listening tape and printed in the student test booklet. Students will read the background information silently while it is read aloud to them.
2.    Students will not be permitted to take notes during this portion of the test.
3.    Questions about theme or central idea will focus on the main idea of an episode and/or the generalized message the author intended the listener to derive.
4.    Students' knowledge of and experiences in listening should not be limited to biographies/ autobiographies since the Core Curriculum Content Standards require knowledge of and experiences in a variety of listening forms, including speech, discussion, and performance. (See Forms in the Listening Skills Array, Macro 3.2, Appendix D.)