Placement tests

Requirements for English Composition courses

Students wishing to register for an English Composition course must either:

• have the prerequisite listed, or
  
• write a 50-minute Placement Test
  

Registration into Composition courses will be blocked until one of these conditions is met. 

There is no registration for this test. No previous language testing will be considered.

Taking the placement test

The placement test is offered through Moodle and is accessible only on specific dates during the year (see dates below). If you are unable to write the test when it is available, you will be required to wait for the next available testing period. 

You may only take the test once. If you wish to write the placement test again, you must wait until the following year. 

Incoming students wishing to take the placement test will need to request access to Moodle a minimum of four business days before the end of the testing session. 

• To have a Moodle account activated on your behalf, please contact assist.english@concordia.ca, and include your full name, student ID, netname, and the email address associated with your Concordia student file. Students can log into Moodle using their Concordia netname and password.   

The link to the test will become available the day before the testing date. Please note that the test will only be available from 12:01am until 11: 59pm on each testing date. If available, select the link corresponding to the appropriate session below. 

Placement Test Dates 2024

Assessment

Be sure to allocate at least 50 minutes of uninterrupted time to access the site and complete the test. We strongly recommend that you take the test from a computer, rather than a phone. 

The purpose of the placement test is to determine which composition course is best suited to your writing needs. You cannot pass or fail the test. However, your test is evaluated for the following: comprehension of the reading selection; length and development of the response; including syntax, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, and vocabulary.

Results

You will receive your result within 14 days from the day you take your test. Your result will be sent automatically to the email address listed as your default address on your Concordia student center. 

If you have not received your result by the date stated above, please check which email is listed as your default address and make sure to check the junk folder, as automatic emails are frequently flagged as spam.

Course Availability 

Students cannot take their placement test and their composition course in the same term. 

Composition courses are in high demand and seats fill up quickly. Once admitted, students should take the placement test at the earliest opportunity to leave ample time to find a spot in their required course before graduating.

Academic Integrity

While the placement test does not take place in the context of a course, Concordia’s academic integrity policies apply. 

As noted in Academic Code of Conduct: Any form of cheating, or plagiarism, as well as any other form of dishonest behaviour, intentional or not, related to the obtention of gain, academic or otherwise, or the interference in evaluative exercises committed by a student is an offence under the Academic Code of Conduct. Any attempt at or participation related in any way to an offence by a student is also an offence (Article 18). 

We reserve the right to cross-reference your writing sample against a GenAI misuse checklist. If your entry is flagged for potential misuse you may be asked to rewrite the exam in person. 

All re-writes will take place in person.

Sample test

You will be asked to write an essay responding to a short reading, such as the following:

"A new study from the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute has determined that when young children and their adult caregivers are in a room where a television is on––and is sound audible–––the children and adults say less and use fewer words than when they do speak. The study found that each hour spent in the presence of a television with the sound on is associated with a decrease of 770 words the child hears from an adult. Most adults utter 941 words per hour, which means that there was almost no talking at all in the study. These results point to a huge problem since one in three American households has a television set on all the time.

Communities are built by people getting together and talking over problems, dreaming up projects, bonding as neighbours. The spoken word, for example, of political oratory, is powerful, dramatic, and moving, but, even more importantly, in face-to-face conversation, it provides the vital strands that knit us together. The language skills that children bring with them into the classroom set the stage for success in school and beyond. For this reason, we must nurture these skills, not harm them. We should not cast television as the enemy, but we should not use it as an electronic babysitter, either.

Question: Do you agree?"