Language Learning and Testing Foundation

Part 5 – Sound Discrimination

PLAB Part 5 is a sound discrimination test requiring students to differentiate between pitch, orality, and nasality in spoken words in an unfamiliar language. Examinees are taught 3 words in the new language. Each of the 30 items in Part 5 consists of a sentence (heard on an audio recording) that contains one of the new words learned. For the first 15 items, the examinee must indicate which of two words printed in the test booklet was spoken on the recording. For the subsequent 15 items, the examinee must choose among all three words and indicate which word was contained in each sentence.

For example, in the first 15 items, examinees might be taught that the word ba means ‘cat’ and the word da means ‘see’. Then, they hear a series of short sentences in the language and they have to determine whether each sentence contains ‘cat’ or ‘see’.

1.       po lan ba

A. cat

B. see

In the second 15 items, examinees might be taught a third word, for example, pa means ‘red’. Then, they hear a series of short sentences in the language and they have to determine whether each sentence contains ‘cat’, ‘see’, or ‘red’.

2.       ku pa gi

A. cat

B. see

C. red