THE FORMAT OF THE UC ANALYTICAL WRITING PLACEMENT EXAMINATION (AWPE)

The UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam provides students with a prose passage of some 700 to 1,000 words. This passage concerns an issue accessible to all freshmen, although it may include some perspectives or information that will be new to them. The passage is of the level of difficulty encountered in beginning University courses, and may be drawn from any of a number of disciplines. Frequently it presents a point of view with which there can clearly be disagreement -- a viewpoint, that is, about a truly arguable issue. Students will have two hours to read the passage and write their essays.

After reading the passage, students write an essay responding to a single topic based on the passage's content. The topic is one of two general kinds: one focusing almost exclusively on the reading passage itself, and the other encouraging students to draw upon their knowledge and personal experience.

The first kind of topic requires students to analyze the passage in one of several ways -- for example, by considering its treatment of a key concept, by comparing its use of a key term to another definition or perspective, or by arguing for or against a particular point of view about its contents. This kind of topic does not require any specific information beyond that provided in the reading passage and the topics themselves, though of course it requires students to use their own ideas in formulating their responses.

The second kind of topic encourages students to draw on knowledge and experience from outside the reading passage. It asks students to explain the passage's thought on an important point and to respond to that thought by evaluating it in light of their own experience or observation, by comparing it with their own reading, or by testing the writer's assumptions against their own.

Both kinds of topics ask students to read thoughtfully and to provide reasoned, concrete, and developed presentations of their points of view, not unsubstantiated statements of agreement or disagreement. Passing essays may substantiate their points of view by any means appropriate to the task, but must demonstrate their writers' understanding of the passage, maintain their focus on the task assigned, and lead readers to understand their points of view, if not to accept them. They must also demonstrate their writers' ability to control a range of vocabulary appropriate for beginning college students, to manage varied syntax accurately and appropriately, and to observe the conventions of standard written English.

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