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English Macro Skills — LET Practice Questions

Macro skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing — the four pillars of language teaching. The LET tests both theoretical knowledge (sub-skills, stages of reading, types of listening) and classroom application.

22 reviewed questions on English Macro Skills — and over 1,100 across English Major overall — are available with a free LET360 account. Sign up free →

Sample questions with answers and explanations

Sample 1

It is an effective strategy for teaching phonics.

Answer: C

Phonics is all about the link between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). The key skill is matching the sound a letter or letter group makes to the written symbol, like seeing 'sh' and saying /sh/. That is exactly choice C. Sight words are whole-word memorization, main idea is comprehension, and skipping words is a reading-around strategy, not phonics.

Tip: Phonics = sound-to-letter mapping (grapheme-phoneme correspondence).

Why the other choices are wrong
  • A. Sight-word memorization is a separate strategy and skips sound analysis.
  • B. Main idea work is comprehension, not decoding.
  • D. Skipping words avoids decoding instead of teaching it.

Sample 2

Which of the following is an example of an informal reading assessment?

Answer: B

An informal reading assessment is one a teacher does in the classroom to get a quick picture of how a student reads. A running record is when the teacher listens to a child read aloud and marks errors, self-corrections, and fluency on the spot. It is flexible, classroom-based, and used to plan instruction, not to give an official score. Standardized and multiple-choice tests are formal because they have set procedures and scoring.

Tip: 'Informal reading assessment' classic example = running record / IRI.

Why the other choices are wrong
  • A. Standardized tests are the textbook example of formal assessment.
  • C. Multiple-choice exams have fixed answers and formal scoring.
  • D. Fill-in-the-blank is a controlled formal exercise, not a flexible classroom observation.

Sample 3

When assessing students' speaking skills, which of the following macro skills should be evaluated?

Answer: B

When we judge how well someone speaks, we look at three big things: can they speak smoothly without too many pauses (fluency), do their ideas connect logically (coherence), and can we understand the sounds they make (pronunciation). These three are the standard speaking-test criteria found in rubrics like IELTS speaking. Grammar and vocabulary matter too but are usually grouped under accuracy or lexical resource. Choice B captures the cleanest set of speaking-specific traits.

Tip: Speaking rubric core trio = Fluency, Coherence, Pronunciation.

Why the other choices are wrong
  • A. Mixes language form items but misses fluency and coherence which are core to speaking.
  • C. Intonation is part of pronunciation; coherence is missing.
  • D. Leaves out pronunciation and coherence, which are central speaking traits.
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