Placement Test Preparation Tips

This assessment, used for course placement and sequencing within our programs, is meant to give us a picture of a student’s current academic English proficiency. It is not used as a substitute for the TOEFL or IELTS for admissions purposes.

This assessment is timed, paper-based, and takes approximately two hours.

Tests are scheduled regularly throughout the year on the Portland campus, and can be scheduled on our sign up page. 

This assessment comprises five sections: 

1. Listening Comprehension: Testers will listen to a conversation or question and choose the correct response.
2. Grammar and Editing: Testers select the grammatically correct options to complete a variety of sentences.
3. Academic Vocabulary: Testers use collocation and definition knowledge to select appropriate vocabulary to complete a sentence.
4. Reading Comprehension: Testers read short passages of typical university level text and respond to comprehension questions about these.
5. Writing: Testers are asked to write in response to an academically relevant prompt for a total of 30 minutes. This is then analyzed for elements of organization, clarity, mechanics, vocabulary level sophistication, grammatical accuracy, and development. 

Students wishing to build skills before an assessment are welcome to do all of any of the following, if desired:

1. For listening comprehension skills development:
   • Students have found it helpful to regularly listen to podcasts of interest (such as Hidden Brain, Radiolab, Stuff You Should Know, Ted Talks, etc.). 
   • There are also numerous advanced listening practice websites, such as this one, that may also be useful and are easily searchable on the internet. 
2. To prepare and review for the grammar section, and to generally strengthen these important skills:
   • Some specific topics that are recommended to start with (there are a lot of great practice activities available through quick online searches) are:
     • Subject-verb agreement review (EG like this Khan academy lesson)
     • Verb tense review (past, present, progressive, and perfect) (EG like this English Page collection)
     • Sentence structure (avoiding fragments and run ons) (EG like this Chomp Chomp review)
     • Modal verbs review (EG like this English Page unit)
3. For academic vocabulary review, it is recommended that students adopt a regular routine of practice and review involving the academic word list. 
   • For our instructors’ tips on how to most effectively expand and learn vocabulary, please view this slide show. 
   • There are numerous practice sites available online, such as this one, that allow one to practice with the Academic Word List, and this one.  
4. To build reading skills, which are a key to success in college, making a habit of reading every day (newspaper, books, academic journals) is not only helpful preparation for a placement assessment, but can also help prepare for future courses. 
   • We highly recommend using Active Reading Strategies while reading. 
   • There are also many advanced reading comprehension sites available for students to practice with responding to questions about a text. Some are academic ESOL focused and others are for more general test preparation.
5. Finally, for the writing component, a student might opt to practice with some timed writing prompts beforehand, to get a feel for the time limit and be better able to manage within these parameters. 
   • This New York Times list offers many prompt suggestions, so would have plenty of options to choose from for practice.

** Here is another list of English Skills Practice Websites that you might find helpful.