Listening LAT
Listening
For the Listening LAT, the ELC uses the Adaptive Listening Test developed by the BYU’s Center for Language Studies. This test is also based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. It includes test items at the Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior levels. It does not include Novice because if students are not successful with the Intermediate items, they have a Novice proficiency level. The test is computer-adaptive, so the students answer items at one level, and depending on how they answer the items, then answer items that are above or below the level of items they just answered. Because the test is adaptive, each student will experience a different test. The items could be different, and the length of the test could be different. The minimum amount of questions a student would need to answer are ten questions and the maximum is forty-five. The maximum length of time a test could take is ninety minutes, but the average is around forty minutes. Each item is timed and has a general standard length of time to listen to or read the passage and then answer the question. Intermediate questions are seventy-five seconds, Advanced questions are one-hundred and fifty seconds, and Superior questions are three-hundred seconds.
Example passages of the Listening LAT are shown below.
Example Intermediate Passage
Transcript:
You have reached the State College switchboard. The office hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. If you wish to leave a message, please wait for the tone and then give your name and telephone number. Thank you.
Rationale
This passage meets the content requirements for the Intermediate level. The passage is a brief spoken message on an everyday topic and includes simple instructions. The item was constructed with low accuracy expectations. Examinees with abilities below the targeted level may understand key words but misapply them and select an incorrect option.
Example Advanced Passage
Transcript:
Police in Ellenburg, New York, are investigating a late-night convenience store robbery. A robber hit the Simpson’s Shop on Route 21 just after 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and displayed what appeared to be a handgun. Police say the subject, who wore a mask and gloves, then fled the store with an undisclosed amount of cash. No one was hurt.
Police say the person appeared to be alone. Police are looking for the car—a black passenger car with a rear wing or spoiler on it.
Rationale
This passage meets the task and content expectations for the Advanced level. It is a factual account of a robbery based on a police report. The listener might review words in the passage to try to determine the meaning. Listeners below the Advanced level may understand the main idea but may not notice certain details like the cautious language used, such as what appeared to be and undisclosed amount.
Example Superior Passage
Transcript:
Congress is back from its July 4 recess, and an estimated 2 million Americans have run out of unemployment benefits. The reason is that the Senate failed to agree, before leaving for the holiday, on renewing a program that provides extended jobless benefits—for as long as 99 weeks—during the economic downturn. Lawmakers of both parties say they want to restore the benefits but could not agree on whether the $35 billion cost should be financed by adding to the deficit or by redirecting previously allocated—although at this point unspecified—stimulus funds. This unnecessary argument is causing real damage to Americans who find themselves without work through no fault of their own.
Drawing the deficit line at additional unemployment benefits is shortsighted because, if anything, the economy could benefit from more stimulus spending, not less. Unemployment benefits, which are most apt to be immediately plowed back into the economy, are about the most stimulative form of spending. Extending the benefits is both fiscally sensible and morally decent.
In theory, longer benefit periods reduce recipients’ incentives to find work. In the current economy, with jobs scarce and unemployment benefits hardly lavish, the program is probably not discouraging many people from accepting available work. Nearly half the unemployed have been out of work for six months or more, and one-fourth have been without work for a year.
Unemployment benefits—which average just over $300 a week—are an essential lifeline. The Senate needs to extend the length of the benefits. The Senate should also offer more help to states to pay for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor. There is no good reason to oppose this help, and there is every reason to offer it. The cost has been trimmed from $24 billion to $16 billion. It is fully paid for, as is the rest of the measure, which would extend expiring tax breaks and renew a particularly effective program to provide jobs to unemployed, low-income parents.
States are staggering under the impact of the economic slump, with revenue down and demand for social services up. Some 30 states were counting on the Medicaid money to balance their budgets, as required by law. If the Medicaid funds are not forthcoming, the other cuts states would be forced to make would further slow the economic recovery. Passing this package is the right thing to do—and fiscally prudent too.