What Should I expect on the English Placement Test?


The ability to write is important to your success in all college courses. The timed English Placement Examination will be used to evaluate and ascertain your proficiency as a writer and to place you in the appropriate English course. Your success or lack thereof on this writing examination will determine whether you are placed in enhancement writing classes or regular composition courses. Thus, you should try to write your best essay.

Although the examination is timed, you will be allotted sufficient time to plan, write, and proofread your essay. The directions to the test tell you to write in only blue or black ink, to skip lines, and to correct errors by drawing a line through the word or words you want to correct and writing the corrected version above the line. You will write an essay on a topic you choose from a provided list. The essay must have an introduction, which includes a thesis statement: topic sentences for each supporting paragraph; and a conclusion.

Raters will be examining your writing to determine whether you can assert and support a point with relevant, concrete details. You must write using Standard English, demonstrating proficiency in sentence level skills, grammar, usage, and punctuation. If you have many grammatical and usage errors, such as sentence structure problems; sentence fragments; run-ons; subject verb agreement; verb forms; pronoun case, reference and shifts; parallel structures; dangling modifiers; etc., you will not pass the examination.


Sample English papers

** Sample papers were graded on a college Sophomore level. Grading rubric for English Placement papers will be on a college Freshmen level.