Exploring English High School Teachers’ Ability in Developing English Summative Test (A Study at SMPN 1 Kuta Binjei Aceh Timur and SMAN 1 Julok Aceh Timur)

One of the tests made by the teacher is summative test, the test to measure what learning goal has been achieved by students. It would be very unfortunate if the teacher used a test that was not meet the principles of a good test. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore the way teachers develop English summative test and find out the common mistakes. Data were obtained from 3 teachers in SMPN 1 Kuta Binjei Aceh Timur and 3 teachers in SMAN 1 Julok Aceh Timur through semi-structured interview and document analysis. The research design of this research was qualitative research. The results showed that the teachers’ stages in developing English summative test were separated into three stages. They looked at the grid and indicators, made the questions and distributed the test to the students. Then, common mistakes found in this research included language structures, unclear questions and correct answers, unclear instructions, inappropriate distractors, redundant wording, objective type items, presenting the questions without including the score in essay questions and did not conduct pretesting. Those results indicated that the test developing by the English teachers have completed the basic stages in the process of developing the test but not fulfilled the whole stages. The teachers were still not aware of some principles that must be considered in developing the test.