The Cloze Test

 WHAT IS CLOZE TEST?

The cloze test is a test that is often associated with language proficiency testing. It is more than simply filling in blanks in a passage as it has a theoretical basis. The term cloze comes from the word closure and represents a psychoanalytical human tendency to "close" any incomplete subject. As such, the cloze test is thought to elicit a respondent's language competency by requiring the respondent to complete a passage which has been "mutilated" with blanks. Although it was initially intended to be a measure of reading ability, the cloze test has often been considered a measure of overall general language proficiency.

There are many different types of cloze tests. Two of the more common are determined by how the words in the passage are deleted in order to form blanks in the passage. The fixed deletion cloze is a cloze passage where every nth  word in the passage is deleted and the first sentence is left intact without any blanks. For example, a cloze test where n=5 means that every fifth word after the first sentence is deleted. This method is said to help assess overall language proficiency as the types of words deleted are thought to be representative of language in general given the fact that linguistic features have been deleted on a more or less random basis.

If the test maker intentionally deletes a certain kind of word, then the cloze test is referred to as a rational deletion cloze test. A rational deletion cloze test could involve the deletion of only verbs, for example. The number of words between every blank in a rational deletion cloze test may not be the same. However, you may also find some cloze tests in in which the passage has been altered so that only certain types of words are deleted at consistent intervals. These cloze passages, even if they consists of blanks that are spaced out equally, are still rational cloze passages as the deleted words were selected by the test maker.

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Source: Educational Testing and Measurement, Classroom Application and Practice Third edition
 by Tom Kubiszyn and Gary Borich (The University of Texas) Harper Collins Publisher, 1990.