An Analysis of English Reading Tests Made by English teachers of SMP Angkasa Lanud Padang

The purpose of this research is to determine the extent to which the English reading tests made by English teachers have fulfilled characteristic as a good test. It is started from designing process the English reading skills being measured, the construction of the test, validity (discrimination index, difficulty index, distractor), and reliability of the test. The basic reasons of this research is a test produced by the English teachers mostly just in compilation from the previous test. It is worried that the English teachers have lack of ability to design a good test by them. This phenomenon is very interesting to be investigated about this problem. This research is a descriptive research conducted at SMP Angkasa Lanud Padang. The research instrument is the English texts given to the English teachers as materials to design a test, each of them consisted of 6 texts for 30 items of the tests. The tests were tested to the students each of them one class (at class of VII.I, VIII.I, and at class of IX) to determine the validity, and reliability. Beside, to determine the English reading skills being measured, and the construction of multiple choices used experts’ judgment validation about three experts and it based the particular criteria (ever designed a test, ever following the training, and know the principles of language testing. To determine validity, reliability data used Anates Pilihan Ganda Program. To determine the kinds of English reading skills and the construction of multiple choices are determined by the experts’ tendency. The research finding proved that the English reading tests made by the English teachers consists of the English reading skill being measured are: determine general description, main idea, stated detail, unstated detail, word reference, meaning of word/phrases/sentences. Then, the construction of multiple choices is not so good neither the stem and nor the option of the English reading tests. Furthermore, the validity of the English reading tests proved that the English reading tests are not valid (discrimination index, difficulty index, distractor). Finally, the reliability of the English reading tests proved that for grade VII is not reliable (0,76), for grade VIII is high reliable (0,88), and for grade IX is high reliable (0,85). In other word, it can be concluded that the English reading tests made by the English teachers at SMP Angkasa Lanud Padang have not fulfilled yet as a good criteria of the English reading tests. i