Assessment Testing

ESL Assessment & Testing

The test is untimed; however, on average students take two hours to complete the test.
Students may be prompted to write an essay, should their score fall between two levels.
No translation dictionaries allowed on the test.
Assessment testing is not required for ESL 225 & 226 or Non-Credit ESL courses.

This section contains 20 questions and is a direct measure of the listening skills of nonnative English speaking students.
The test measures the ability to listen to and understand one or more persons speaking in English.

This section measures student proficiency in using correct grammar in English sentences.

The ESL Sentence Meaning test measures the student's understanding of the meaning of sentences in English.
It assesses the understanding of word meanings in one- or two-sentence contexts

Pending the results of the sections above, you may be prompted to write an essay.
You will have 45 minutes to write a 300-600 word, multi-paragraph essay on an assigned topic.
Your essay will be evaluated using artificial intelligence.

Organization: Clear structure of response and presentation of a logical sequence of ideas
Focus, Development, and Support: Maintenance of clarity when presenting the main idea or point of view; and extent of ideas and the presentation of supporting details.
Vocabulary: The appropriateness and complexity of vocabulary.
Sentence Structure: The quality and variety of sentence structures, usage and grammar.
Mechanics: Degree of writing errors in usage and mechanics.

Note: Effective Summer 2017, ESLL Level 5 courses will include ESLL 249 and ESLL 125 (formally ESLL 25).