Study Guide
English
Test Design and Framework
The test design below describes general assessment information. The framework that follows is a detailed outline that explains the knowledge and skills that this test measures.
Test Design
| Format | Computer-based test (CBT) and online-proctored test |
|---|---|
| Number of Questions | 100 multiple-choice questions |
| Time* | 2 hours |
| Passing Score | 220 |
*Does not include 15-minute tutorial
Test Framework
| Content Domain | Range of Competencies | Approximate Percentage of Test Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| I. | Reading Literature and Informational Texts | 0001–0002 | 35% |
| II. | Writing and Researching | 0003–0006 | 35% |
| III. | Speaking and Listening | 0007–0008 | 20% |
| IV. | Language and Conventions | 0009 | 10% |
Domain I–Reading Literature and Informational Texts
Competency 0001–Demonstrate the ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze literature.
For example:
- Demonstrate knowledge of a broad range of U.S. and world literature that represents a wide spectrum of cultural and historical traditions, genres, and experiences.
- Use textual evidence to support analysis of the explicit meaning of a literary text and to draw inferences from a literary text.
- Determine the themes or central ideas of a literary text.
- Determine the literal, figurative, and connotative meanings of words and phrases in a literary text.
- Analyze the impact of specific words on the meaning, tone, and mood of a literary text.
- Analyze the impact of an author's choices concerning how to develop and relate elements such as setting, plot, and character in a literary text.
- Analyze how authors use techniques such as satire, irony, and understatement to convey point of view.
- Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid, how an author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
- Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early twentieth-century foundational works of U.S. literature (e.g., works by Anne Bradstreet, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Countee Cullen, Emily Dickinson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Edgar Allan Poe, John Steinbeck, Mario Suárez, Mark Twain, Richard Wright), including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.
Competency 0002–Demonstrate the ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze informational and persuasive texts.
For example:
- Demonstrate knowledge of the characteristics of various forms of informational and persuasive texts, including literary nonfiction, memoirs, essays, biographies, and editorials.
- Use textual evidence to support analysis of the explicit meaning of an informational or persuasive text and to draw inferences from a text.
- Determine the central ideas of an informational or persuasive text and analyze how the ideas develop and interact in the text.
- Recognize an accurate, objective summary of an informational text.
- Determine the figurative, connotative, and technical meanings of words and phrases as they are used in an informational or persuasive text and analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text.
- Analyze the effectiveness of an author's use of structure for exposition or argument, including whether the structure helps make the author's points clear, convincing, and engaging.
- Determine an author's point of view or purpose in an informational or persuasive text.
- Analyze how style and content contribute to the power and persuasiveness of a text.
- Apply knowledge of how to analyze, evaluate, and integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse print and nonprint media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
- Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents) and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy.
- Analyze seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Declaration of Independence, preamble to the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Lincoln's second inaugural address) for their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features.
Domain II–Writing and Researching
Competency 0003–Understand strategies and techniques for writing arguments.
For example:
- Apply knowledge of how to introduce a precise claim, establishing the significance of the claim and distinguishing the claim from alternate or opposing claims.
- Apply knowledge of how to organize an argument in a way that logically sequences claims, counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
- Apply knowledge of how to develop claims and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both.
- Apply knowledge of how to anticipate the knowledge level and concerns, values, and possible biases of an audience.
- Apply knowledge of how to use words, phrases, and clauses, as well as varied syntax, to link the major sections of an argument, create cohesion, and clarify the relationship between claims and counterclaims.
- Apply knowledge of how to establish and maintain a formal style while observing appropriate norms and conventions.
- Apply knowledge of how to compose a conclusion that follows from and supports an argument.
- Apply knowledge of how to develop and strengthen an argument as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
- Apply knowledge of how to use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments.
Competency 0004–Understand strategies and techniques for writing informative and explanatory texts.
For example:
- Apply knowledge of strategies for generating, representing, and organizing ideas for writing.
- Apply knowledge of how to compose a strong thesis statement, introduce a topic, and organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it to create a unified whole.
- Apply knowledge of how to develop a topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
- Apply knowledge of how to use appropriate and varied transitions and syntax to link major sections of an informative or explanatory text, create cohesion, and clarify relationships among complex ideas and concepts.
- Apply knowledge of how to use precise language, domain-specific vocabulary, and rhetorical and literary devices to convey accurate information about a complex topic.
- Apply knowledge of how to establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while observing appropriate norms and conventions.
- Apply knowledge of how to compose a conclusion that follows from and supports information or an explanation presented in a written text.
- Apply knowledge of how to develop and strengthen informative or explanatory writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
- Apply knowledge of how to use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new information.
Competency 0005–Understand strategies and techniques for writing narratives.
For example:
- Apply knowledge of how to engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation and its significance; establishing one or multiple points of view; and introducing a narrator and/or characters.
- Apply knowledge of how to use narrative techniques such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
- Apply knowledge of how to use a variety of techniques for sequencing events in a narrative so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole and build toward a particular tone and outcome.
- Apply knowledge of how to use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid impression of experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
- Apply knowledge of how to compose a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of a narrative.
- Apply knowledge of how to develop and strengthen narrative writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
Competency 0006–Understand methods of researching to build and present knowledge.
For example:
- Apply knowledge of methods of selecting and refining a topic for research, narrowing or broadening inquiry as appropriate.
- Apply knowledge of methods of assessing the credibility, objectivity, and reliability of print and digital sources.
- Apply knowledge of methods of assessing the strengths and limitations of sources in terms of task, purpose, and audience.
- Apply knowledge of methods of gathering and organizing information from sources systematically.
- Apply knowledge of methods of paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting information from sources appropriately and of integrating information into a text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas.
- Apply knowledge of methods of citing and acknowledging sources of information appropriately in a text and following a standard format for citation.
Domain III–Speaking and Listening
Competency 0007–Understand strategies for speaking and listening and for engaging in collaborative discussions.
For example:
- Apply knowledge of how to communicate effectively with audiences, groups, and individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
- Apply knowledge of how to work with discussion participants to promote civil, democratic discussions and decision making; set clear goals and deadlines; and establish individual roles as needed.
- Apply knowledge of strategies for posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence and for clarifying, verifying, and challenging ideas and conclusions.
- Apply knowledge of strategies for ensuring that a discussion offers a full range of positions on a topic or issue, as well as divergent and creative perspectives.
- Apply knowledge of how to evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric and assess a speaker's stance, premises, word choice, and tone.
Competency 0008–Understand strategies and techniques for presenting knowledge and ideas.
For example:
- Demonstrate knowledge of how to orally present information and convey a clear perspective using organization, development, content, and style that are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
- Demonstrate knowledge of how to make strategic use of digital media in presentations to enhance an audience's understanding of research findings, reasoning, and evidence, as well as to add interest.
- Demonstrate knowledge of how to adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks.
Domain IV–Language and Conventions
Competency 0009–Understand language in context and conventions of English.
For example:
- Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word's position or function in a sentence) to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases.
- Determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by identifying patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech.
- Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings by interpreting figures of speech (e.g., allusion, euphemism, hyperbole, paradox) in context and analyzing denotative meanings of words.
- Apply knowledge of the form and use of verbs in the active and passive voice and in the indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional, and subjunctive mood, including how to use voice and mood of verbs to achieve particular effects (e.g., emphasizing the actor or the action, expressing uncertainty, describing a state contrary to fact).
- Apply knowledge of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases at the college- and career-readiness level.
- Demonstrate knowledge of how to gather vocabulary knowledge when determining that a word or phrase is important to comprehension or expression.
- Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, and capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
- Demonstrate understanding that standard English usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes contested, and of the historical, social, cultural, and technological influences that shape the English language.