In language testing, the concept of reduced redundancy has been a fruitful approach for the development of major test procedures. The way in which exam inees perform under conditions of 'noise' is believed to provide evidence for the level of their current status in overall or general language proficiency. This article reports an investigation comparing the empirical performance of C-Tests with other representatives of the 'family' of reduced redundancy tests - classical cloze, cloze-elide, multiple-choice cloze. The criterion for empirical validity is DELTA, the Duisburg English Language Test for Advanced Students. Overall, the C-Test emerges as the most economical and reliable procedure, it has the highest empirical validity and is shown to be the best representative of the general factor in the bat tery.
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