Over the last couple of years, Lycée Michel Lucius has considerably changed, offering new streams and different curricula to an increasingly diverse student population. The success of the school is obvious; every year, many students apply to the English Classes (IEC) at Interna-tional School Michel Lucius, a programme of study that is entirely taught in English. In order to enter the English classes, students have to sit an entrance exam that tests if they have the necessary language skills to follow the programme. Especially year ten (4IEC) sees a high num-ber of applicants every year. It is, thus, of paramount importance to ensure the quality of these exams so that the decisions about accepting or refusing a candidate are based on in-formed choices.
In the light of this, the first chapter of this research project is going to revisit the 4IEC en-trance exams. First, the English system at International School Michel Lucius, and its curricula will be described. Then, the theoretical background of tests and exams will be discussed. There will be a review of different test and exam types such as diagnostic tests or proficiency tests. Then, there will be a definition of what a “good” test consists of. Afterwards, the current and some of the former exams will be closely scrutinized in order to find out if they meet the criteria for a “good” test. A last sub-chapter will compare the results of one the entrance exams with the results of the International GCSE exams of the same students.
The second chapter contains the designing and construction stage of the test. The findings of the first chapter will be taken into consideration in order to create a new test. The test content, method and construct will be determined and a test specification will be written before the construction of the actual test.
Chapter three will focus on the try-out stage. The exam will be put to the test to find out if it is valid. The test content and the test methods will be examined and the necessary changes will be made before the test can become operational.
The conclusion will present the findings of the research project and offer a future outlook.