Types of questions

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You can construct an assessment of up to 10 questions of 6 different types. The different types are designed to assess various aspects of a test taker's language skills.

The most common questions posed to test takers are open-ended, so this is the default in the question type dropdown menu. Using this dropdown, you can choose each question to be any of 6 types:

The configuration panel that displays on the right below the dropdown allows you to control what is presented to the test taker and how. The panel has different elements depending on the type of question you selected.

Quick overview of question types

Here are the basic differences among the question types:

Open-ended

Ask the test taker an open-ended question about a particular topic, so they speak off-the-cuff, with no expected answer.

Assesses: pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar

Read-aloud (Pronunciation)

Ask the test taker to read some text.

Assesses: pronunciation

Read-aloud (Fluency)

Ask the test taker to read some text.

Assesses: pronunciation, fluency

Short Task Achievement (Fluency)

Ask the test taker to follow some instructions (including, but not limited to answering any questions, as in Open-ended).

Example 1: "Who was your hero when you were a kid?

Example 2: "Ask a question based on this timetable."

Assesses: pronunciation, fluency, task achievement

Long Task Achievement

Ask the test taker to follow some instructions (including, but not limited to answering a free-form question).

Example: "Describe the story in the following image."

Assesses: pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, task achievement

Record only

Capture audio or video of a candidate, not for grading. Useful for async screens/interviews.