When writing the specification, I had to decide on the item types and tasks. Items can be raised or responded to in oral or written form (Brown 2004: 51). As it was a test intended to assess students' listening skills, the solicitation clearly had to be oral. However, I had to decide whether the students' response should be oral or written. As a test should be practical, i.e. not take too long to complete or correct (Harris & McCann 1994: 34), I decided that the answers should be written, because due to the class size, administering a test would take too long. with oral responses for each student. The next step was to find the appropriate texts; those that would both fit specifications and produce appropriate items (Alderson et al. 1995: 43). In this case, I decided to write and record my own listening texts as I found it very difficult to find authentic or published texts that matched the requirements of the test specifications and the level of the students, and which therefore had content validity (Brown 2004: 22). -3).There are four different types of listening performance that can be assessed: intensive, reactive, selective and extensive (Brown 2004: 120), and in this test I attempted to assess the selective and intensive listening. The first part is a matching exercise in which students listen to five short conversations and match the topic of the text to an image. This type of task can assess students' selective listening in the form of information transfer (Brown 2004: 127). Students must selectively listen to the short clip in order to extract the domain and match it to the image. Part 2 is a multiple choice activity that assesses students' intensive listening. They listen to a...... middle of paper......n. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bachman, L.F. and Palmer. AS (1996). Language tests in practice: developing and designing useful language tests. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, H.D. (2004). Language assessment: principles and classroom practices. New York: Pearson Education. Brown, J.D. (1996). Tests in language programs. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Buck, G. (2001). Listening assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L. (2005). Listening to a second language: theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fulcher, G. and Davidson, F. (2007). Language Tests and Assessments: An Advanced Resource Book. Oxon: Routledge. Harris, M. and McCann, P. (1994). Assessment. Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Hughes, A. (1989). Tests for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.