Course

Course Summary

Credit Type:

Exam

ACE ID:

CLEP-0001

Organization:

College Board's College-Level Examination Program (CLEP)

Dates Offered:

Credit Recommendation & Competencies

Level	Credits (SH)	Subject
Lower-Division Baccalaureate	6	for candidates with scores of 50 or above.

There are two versions of the CLEP English Composition exam. Some colleges grant credit only for the version with essay; others grant credit for the all-multiple-choice version; still others accept either version for credit. A number of schools supplement the all-multiple-choice version with a writing assignment that they administer and score themselves. Many colleges grant six semester hours (or the equivalent) of credit toward satisfying a liberal arts or distribution requirement in English; others grant six credit hours of course credit for a specific first-year composition or English course that emphasizes expository writing.

Description

Objective:

The CLEP English Composition examination assesses writing skills taught in most first-year college composition courses and, in particular, skills for college assignments requiring writing that explains, interprets, analyzes, presents, or supports a point of view. The examination does not require knowledge of grammatical terms. However, the student will need to apply the principles and conventions expected of academic writing discourse. Two versions of the test are offered. One is all multiple-choice, and contains approximately 90 questions to be answered in 90 minutes. The other version includes two sections, which are separately timed: Section I contains approximately 50 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 45 minutes, and Section II is comprised of one essay question to be answered in 45 minutes. The essay is scored by college faculty who teach writing courses. Each essay is read and assigned a rating by two scorers; the sum of the two ratings is weighted and then combined with the candidate's multiple-choice score. The resulting combined score is reported as a scaled score between 20 and 80. Separate scores are not reported for the multiple-choice and essay sections. Both versions of the exam are administered on a computer terminal.Through the military's DANTES program, a pencil-and-paper version of the all-multiple-choice version of the exam is available to active service military test takers.

Skills Measured:

Questions on the CLEP English Composition examination measure candidates' writing skills both at the sentence level and within the context of passages. There is also emphasis on revising work in progress. The multiple-choice questions measure specific skills and knowledge as indicated:Skills at the Sentence Level:Candidates' knowledge of a variety of logical, structural, and grammatical relationships within a sentence is tested by approximately 55 percent of the all-multiple-choice version and 30 percent of the multiple-choice questions in the version with essay. Questions test recognition of Standard Written English relating to:Sentence boundaries;Clarity of expression;Agreement: subject-verb; verb tense; pronoun reference, shift, number;Active/passive voice;Diction and idiom;Syntax: parallelism, coordination, subordination, dangling modifiers;Sentence variety.The following kinds of question format assess sentence-level skills throughout the test:Identifying Sentence Errors-This type of question appears in both versions of the exam. It requires the candidate to identify wording that violates the standard conventions of written discourse.Improving Sentences-This type of question appears in both versions of the exam. It requires the candidate to choose the phrase, clause, or sentence that best conveys the intended meaning of the sentence.Restructuring Sentences-This type of question appears only in the all-multiple-choice version. The candidate is given a sentence to reword in order to change emphasis or improve clarity. He or she then must choose from five options the phrase that would most likely appear in the new sentence.Skills in Context:Questions in approximately 45 percent of the all-multiple-choice version and 20 percent of theversion with essay measure recognition of the following in the context of works in progress orof published prose:Main idea, thesis;Organization of ideas in the paragraph or essay;Relevance of evidence, sufficiency of detail, levels of specificity;Audience and purpose (effect on style, tone, language, or argument);Logic of argument (inductive, deductive reasoning);Coherence within and between paragraphs;Rhetorical emphasis, effect;Sustaining tense or point of view;Sentence combining, sentence variety.The following kinds of questions measure writing skills in context:Revising Work in Progress-This type of question appears in both versions of the exam. The candidate identifies ways to improve an early draft of an essay.Analyzing Writing-Two prose passages written in very different modes appear only in the all-multiple-choice version. The candidate answers questions about each passage and about the strategies used by the author of each passage.

Instruction & Assessment