An analysis of listening part in Ferdowsi University Persian Proficiency test

There is no doubt that listening ability is very important in an academic environment. This ability is needed in most of students’ daily activities. That is why assessing listening constitutes a major part of Language proficiency tests such as Ferdowsi University. This exam is held in Iran and Iraq to assess language knowledge of non-Persian speaker who want to enter Iranian Universities. In this research we analyzed the listening part of this exam with Rasch model. The result show that the reliability is 0.66 which is low for a high stake test. Also the wright map indicated the exam items are mostly appropriate for elementary or intermediate students. As most of test items’ type of match are locating and cycling, it is suggested to include more integrative and generative items which can make the test more difficult. Generally speaking the exam mostly assess the ability to detect key vocabulary and understanding details while understanding communicative function of utterances, making inferences about relationship among ideas, integrating information from listening and reading texts are abilities that can improve test difficulty.