Nava Nourdad - Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran
Fatemeh Delavari - Department of ELT, Ahar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahar, Iran

The main focus of the present study was to find out whether test-taking strategy instruction can be used as a possible way of increasing reading test performance of EFL learners or not. To this end a quasi-experimental study with 36 participants in two study groups was designed. At the outset of the study learners were homogenized through PET test and equality of the proficiency level in the experimental and control groups were proved. Next a standardized reading comprehension pre-test was given to reject any the initial differences in reading test performance of the groups. Later the treatment started for the experimental group with 22 strategies instructed in 11 sessions. At the end a parallel standardized reading comprehension test was used as the post-test. Analysis of the independent samples t-test revealed that after treatment the experimental group outperformed the control one which can be attributed to the significant positive effect of test-taking strategies on reading test performance. These findings can be beneficial in various stages of foreign language education from curriculum development and syllabus design to teaching and testing issues for policy makers, language teachers and learners.

Test-taking strategies, Reading test performance, Reading comprehension ability