This study focuses on recent research into test-taking strategies used by respondents in tests of receptive skills (reading and listening) in English as a second language, aiming to examine different aspects of the research. The existing research is predominantly quantitative in design; qualitative methods play a complementary role. Studies into strategies used in reading tests significantly outnumber those concerned with strategies employed in listening tests. A number of studies investigate similar general topics, such as the types of strategies used, the use of test-taking strategies in relation to language proficiency of the respondents, and the effectiveness of strategy use. New directions of research also appear, such as the investigation into the particular order of groups of strategies used in a specific situation, i.e. test items progressively increasing in difficulty. Practical application of research is taken into account in the studies, encompassing test validation, item-type susceptibility to test-wiseness and subsequent recommendations related to its use in test, or suggestions related to test-taking strategy instruction.

The volume of proceedings is a result of the Specific Research project conducted in 2018 with the registration number MUNI/A/1143/2018 – Research on learning and teaching foreign languages. The contributions present research studies of doctoral students in the field of Foreign Language Didactics at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University. The studies are written in Czech.

This work focuses on the test-taking strategies employed by STANAG 6001 English exam candidates in receptive skills tests and on how these strategies are employed. The qualitative analysis reveals that candidates have their preferred strategy of dealing with test items, they use a number of test-management and test-wiseness strategies, and that the use of a particular strategy depends on a number of factors.

The paper presents current international research studies on foreign language learning styles. The studies apply learning styles questionnaires on university, secondary and elementary school students, including students of a language institute, mostly with the aim of making language instruction more effective, or for identifying learning styles used in a particular skill.