J. B. 希顿（J. B. Heaton）：英国利兹大学英语语言专业高级讲师，主要面向海外学生授课，并在欧洲和亚洲从事教研工作。

英语试卷是如何设计的？口语测试如何开展？语言测试的历史是什么？如何利用测试结果促进教学？……本书案例翔实，论述深入浅出，有关英语测试的基本问题读者都能在《英语测试》一书中找到答案，并能对英语测试获得高屋建瓴的认识。

1?Introduction to language testing 5
1．1?Testing and teaching 5
1．2?Why test? 6
1．3?What should be tested and to what standard? 7
1．4?Testing the language skills 8
1．5?Testing language areas 9
1．6?Language skills and language elements 10
1．7?Recognition and production 11
1．8?Problems of sampling 12
1．9?Avoiding traps for the students 14

2?Approaches to language testing 15
2．1?Background 15
2．2?The essay-translation approach 15
2．3?The structuralist approach 15
2．4?The integrative approach 16
2．5?The communicative approach 19

3?Objective testing 25
3．1?Subjective and objective testing 25
3．2?Objective tests 26
3．3?Multiple-choice items： general 27
3．4?Multiple-choice items： the stem/the correct option/the distractors 30
3．5?Writing the test 33

4?Tests of grammar and usage 34
4．1?Introduction 34
4．2?Multiple-choice grammar items： item types 34
4．3?Constructing multiple-choice items 37
4．4?Constructing error-recognition multiple-choice items 39
4．5?Constructing rearrangement items 41
4．6?Constructing completion items 42
4．7?Constructing transformation items 46
4．8?Constructing items involving the changing of words 48
4．9?Constructing ‘broken sentence’ items 49
4．10?Constructing pairing and matching items 49
4．11?Constructing combination and addition items 50

5?Testing vocabulary 51
5．1?Selection of items 51
5．2?Multiple-choice items (A) 52
5．3?Multiple-choice items (B) 56
5．4?Sets (associated words) 58
5．5?Matching items 58
5．6?More objective items 60
5．7?Completion items 62

6?Listening comprehension tests 64
6．1?General 64
6．2?Phoneme discrimination tests 65
6．3?Tests of stress and intonation 68
6．4?Statements and dialogues 69
6．5?Testing comprehension through visual materials 71
6．6?Understanding talks and lectures 82

7?Oral production tests 88
7．1?Some difficulties in testing the speaking sk