Abstract:
Learning outcomes of an English course are successfully materialized when the contents are assessed,
tested, and finally evaluated in a valid and reliable way, strengthening a positive backwash effect. Benjamin
Bloom's Taxonomy is widely accepted and used as an assessment tool that measures the students' cognitive
development. This paper aims to evaluate the English question papers prepared for the agriculture learners
using revised Bloom's taxonomy at a public agricultural university in Bangladesh. It explores the extent to
which the objectives of the English curriculum are reflected in question papers. Notwithstanding, it also
investigates the cognitive level of taxonomy in practice to assess the students' proficiency. The impetus to
work on this topic comes from observing students' more unsatisfactory performance in the English final
examination that reflects their low level of understanding. For this purpose, the English curriculum and
questions of different faculties during 2015 to 2019 have been taken into account as a source of data.
Moreover, critical descriptive and content analyses are accomplished depending on the verb lists of Bloom's
taxonomy. Besides, the collected data are then quantified to demonstrate them in a statistical form.
Accordingly, five English teachers were interviewed on the application of Bloom's taxonomy in the
research context. Henceforth, this study includes a mixed-method approach using both qualitative and
quantitative data. The findings of the paper reveal that the question papers include mostly the lower-domain
or level of taxonomy focusing the remember, understand, and to some extent apply levels. Further, the
objectives have not been duly justified in the question papers. Hence, it reveals that the present assessment
technique does not follow a higher domain of metacognitive skills in developing the creative faculty of the
students. Finally, the study suggests that the existing English questions need to be prepared to focus on the
higher cognitive domain of knowledge to make the learners cognitively competent in communication.
