Hello and Sawsdee khrap,

Our grade six and grade nine students will have to write their "superficial O-Net tests" tomorrow.

I know that some of you guys might know somebody who knows somebody who's already got them and taught them the right answers.

I just came back from a meeting, where I had to tell them that quite a few Pre O-net test questions were completely wrong.

Some had no, a few had too possible answers.Insanity at its best.

Even a grade one kid, a boy who'd been in the UK pointed a mistake out, when I showed him some questions. Why can't they ask people who write proper tests?

If you've got the right connection, please page me. If anybody has access to the actual tests, I'm even willing to pay for a copy for grade six.

Of course not to tell our students the right answers, only to check the English and sentence structure.

Buddha bless you all.-

Of course not to tell our students the right answers, only to check the English and sentence structure.

Yeah right, and Santa Claus flies on a sleigh through the sky. Guess you could save your money and wait another day to check the sentence structure.

Some had no, a few had too possible answers.Insanity at its best.

P.S. Sorry, I meant two possible answers. I apologize.

Of course not to tell our students the right answers, only to check the English and sentence structure.

Yeah right, and Santa Claus flies on a sleigh through the sky. Guess you could save your money and wait another day to check the sentence structure.

They usually make it impossible to get a copy on the test day.If you will have access, I'd be happy if you'd post them here, or send them to me.

Thanks a lot.

I have never seen them in advance, but I usually see an M3 and/or M6 copy after the test has already occurred.

To be frank, every one I have ever seen has been a horrendous, worthless failure of a test. Wastes of paper.

Like you said, there are frequently:

A ) No correct answers

B ) Multiple (even ALL) correct answers

C ) Grammatical errors or other flaws in the questions, answers, reading sections, etc.

D ) Plenty of other miscellaneous mistakes/flaws

I think the biggest problem is that the test is written as "choose the best answer" rather than "choose the correct answer", but what determines "best" is often very subjective. If you've seen enough of the old tests, you have a better shot at knowing what they are looking for because you can figure out that "best" often means "most polite / and or compatible with conservative Thai cultural sensibilities". Problems arise when the most polite option is also archaic or even blatantly grammatically incorrect... Should you assume that the old usage or grammar mistakes are unintentional errors, and therefore stick with that answer even though it is wrong, or guess that they are intentional errors designed to prompt you to choose another option? Even keeping that kind of stuff in mind, it is difficult to impossible even for a fluent native speaker to get a perfect (or even merely a GOOD) score on the test without being given the answers.

Basically I think that if you gave the test to native speaking PhDs in linguistics or English, who weren't familiar with Thai culture, most would "fail" the test. That is, if they didn't get 2-3 questions in and just refuse to go any further because of the terrible quality...

I'm often asked to help my students prepare for the O-Net by going over past tests with them in class. At the beginning of the class, I flat out tell them that I think the tests are terrible, wrong, and worthless. I'll continue by saying that unfortunately they have to take them, and even worse, the scores they get will actually have an impact on their lives and futures at a university/whatever. So, I'm here to TRY to help them get the best scores they can on the test, BUT they should not feel discouraged if they get a low score. It isn't a fair test of their English ability in any way. That being said, I think that the best single bit of advice you can give them is to answer like the questions are being asked to them by their very conservative Grandma -- if more than one answer seems right, err on the side of the one that seems the most deferential/polite.

--EDIT because of damn auto-smilies

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/796892-investigation-into-schools-help-for-students-in-o-net/