English Placement Cutscores

The ECS (formerly, for us, the EPT) English Placement Test was "renormed," as it is every ten years or so, for the Colleges by UW-Madison's Center for Placement Testing. The full rationale and procedures behind that "renorming" can be found in the Center's booklet, "Developing Cutscores for the Renormed English Placement Test: A Mapping of the ECS onto the ENGL for UW-Colleges," authored by James Wollack, et al. But for our purposes, the crucial section of that document is the part (p. 6) which recommends that the new cutscores noted below should be instituted in the Colleges in the wake of the "renorming." As the Colleges' representative on the WEPT Committee, I have been assured by Jim Wollack that the new cutscores will *not* result in any significant differences in the numbers of students referred, respectively, to ENG 098, ENG 101, or ENG 102; rather, the new scores should result in placements that mirror the results of the old test. The rescaled ECS is referred to as the ENGL; in the tables below, I indicate how the old ECS cutscores translate into the new ENGL ones.

OLD ECS score	Placement
150-454	ENG 098
455-526	ENG 101
527-634	ENG 102
635-850	ENG 102 Plus
655-850	Exempt from ENG 102, with the oversight of the English Dept.

These now translate as follows:

NEW ENGL cutscore equivs	Placement
below 335	ENG 098
335-415	ENG 101
416-525	ENG 102
526-545	ENG 102 Plus
above 545	Possible exemption from 102, w/ consultation of Dept.