The passage looks to be a part of literary piece and it is written in past tense

Guidelines for Planning and Conducting Speech Tests

Planning of an oral skills test must be done carefully since speech is one of the most difficult areas of testing. The following points must be taken into serious consideration:

1. 
   The speech test should not be too short. The more time spent the better the reliability will be. This will enable the examiner to elicit sufficient and representative language behavior of each candidate. But practical problems may be encountered. Therefore, the time allocated for the entire test must be equally distributed among the candidates.
   
2. 
   The test must include a wide sample of language functions given in the syllabus. If possible, all the language functions can be tested, but the examiner must also be sensitive to practical constraints.
   
3. 
   The examiner must structure the test in advance. He should not see it as asking some questions at random. The test specification must be strictly followed. Which techniques and which tasks to be used must be decided before he begins the test.
   
4. 
   Each testing task should begin afresh. The tasks must not be related to the previous one. More than one testing format may be used. Within each test format, more than one separate test items should be used. He should also ensure that time is not excessively used on a single test item. It is important that the candidate is given some clues or a second attempt when he fails to respond.
   
5. 
   The candidates are naturally stressful in an oral test. The examiner must be encouraging. At the beginning, a brief ‘setting the scene’ stage can be included to lower degree of the anxiety so that the candidate’s true language performances will be shown in the test: candidates must be put at ease during the entire test. The ending of the test must be done by giving a sense of accomplishment. A good rapport is even more important than ‘good techniques’.
   
6. 
   The examiners can be trained, where possible. It is not easy to conduct an oral interview. The examiner must be sympathetic and flexible in his approach.
   
7. 
   Whenever possible, more than one examiner can be used so that more reliable information about the candidate’s performances will be received.
   

6.