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August 19, 2005 > News > Writing exam offered to freshmen online

Writing exam offered to freshmen online

By David Brown | Thresher Editorial Staff

Orientation Week was a little less hectic for this year’s new students, who were asked to take the required English composition exam online in July. Students, who could choose between two different examination periods, had about four days to read information about a specified topic and 56 hours to read a prompt and write an essay response. More than 80 percent of new students took the online exam.

English Professor and Director of the Composition Exam Linda Driskill said she recommended Rice try an online exam instead of the traditional two-hour written exam to more closely imitate academic writing situations. The exam conditions are similar to those students face when writing college papers, and the feedback system for students is more extensive, Driskill said.

Under the written exam system, students receive one of three grades — “satisfactory,” “low pass” or “not satisfactory.” Students receiving a grade of “not satisfactory” are required to take ENGL 103: Introduction to Argument and Academic Writing to satisfy Rice’s composition graduation requirement. A grade of “satisfactory” or “low pass” exempts a student from taking the class.

However, online exam graders provide a page of comments for students and their advisers in addition to one of the three grades. The comments will be used to advise students about which courses to take.

In addition to the improvement in advising afforded by the online exam, students are not under as much pressure or as sleep-deprived at home as they are during O-Week, Driskill said. Such factors could lead to worse performances on the exam during O-Week, she said.

Driskill said she is not aware of any problems with the online exam, although exam results have not yet been returned. In the future, if Rice were to keep the online system, she expects results to be returned in about two weeks.

“I want to reserve judgment until we complete our participation,” Driskill said. “[But] I’m happier than [I was] with the students taking a two-hour exam on campus and being pronounced ready to graduate or in need of remediation. I don’t like that system, and I’m trying to get it to change.”

Ten schools are currently part of the MIT/Microsoft iCampus alliance, a consortium of schools using the same software package to administer English competency exams to new students. The summer administration was a trial period for Rice, Driskill said, and the trial will continue as spring transfer students are tested.

With the current number of schools, the exam costs Rice about $65 per student. However, Driskill said she expects the number of consortium members to rise — which will reduce costs — as universities increasingly become dissatisfied with the SAT Writing section.

Driskill will report on the exam to the University Standing Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum and Provost Eugene Levy, who will decide whether or not to join the consortium.

Because Rice does not have trained graders yet, the exams were sent to MIT — where the topic had been used previously — to be graded. The prompt asked students to propose an international policy for dealing with the illegal sale of organs in poor countries. Students were told their work was covered by the Honor Code and were required to sign a statement pledging, on their honor, they did not receive any aid from others while preparing the essay. Driskill said 10 universities have used the system for five years and have reported that cheating is only a minor problem.

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