The WPE exams are assessed by means of holistic scoring. In this process, each essay is scored by two readers, each employing a six-point scale. Then the two scores are combined. A passing score is a 7out of a possible 12points. The two readers must agree within one point of one another or the exam goes to a third reader for a final determination. This is essentially the same holistic scoring process employed by the Educational Testing Service to assess all their AP exams. It is parallel to the process used by school teachers to assess benchmark writing samples at the third, fifth, eighth, and tenth grades for all of Oregon’s school children.

The procedure used to score WPE exams conforms to national standards in holistic assessment and is aligned with Oregon’s benchmark testing. The process ensures a remarkable degree of validity and reliability. As stated above, the two readers must score an exam within one point of one another or the exam goes to a third reader. Two readers—and the norming process--are employed in order to avoid subjectivity. One measure of the reliability of the scoring process—of its objectivity--is the number of exams that have to be read by a third reader. A large number would mean there is little consensus on standards. However, less than 1% of WPE exams need a third reading—uniformity of judgment is remarkably high.

Readers of the WPE exams include 45 Eastern faculty from across the curriculum, including administrative staff and, during the summer, elementary and secondary teachers from eastern Oregon, who participate in training and scoring through the Oregon Writing Project. In fact, all readers must participate in training sessions in order to build consensus about what constitutes good writing at the upper division level. They look at a range of papers written by students and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Only after going through this norming process are readers certified to actually score exams.

Each time the test is administered about two-thirds of the students taking the test pass it. This holds true for students whether they are taking the test for the first time or are re-testing. By senior year, about 96% of the class has passed the test. In a given year only about 4% of the senior class has not passed the exam and cannot graduate because of it. Often these students have put off taking the exam until late in their senior year, so that there is little time to improve their writing skills. It is recommended that students take the WPE at the end of their sophomore year or the beginning of their junior.

A 96% passage rate is excellent for any test. Part of the reason the rate is so high is that Eastern faculty prepare their students well by demanding good writing from them in their upper division Writing Intensive courses. Eastern also has an excellent first-year composition program that helps students prepare for the writing demands of other courses and for the WPE. In most sections of WR 121 and 131, students participate in norming sessions themselves. They go through the actual training for scoring writing samples and then read and score student work produced in the class by means of the WPE standards. In addition, the Learning Center conducts WPE workshops each term before the exam is administered. This combination of resources and the coherence of the program itself ensure that students who need more work on writing are identified before they graduate. It also ensures almost all students meet Eastern’s standards for college writing by the time they graduate.