The document outlines the exam structure and content for English proficiency exams at a university. It discusses the proficiency exam which has three parts: part 1 assesses grammar, vocabulary and reading; part 2 assesses listening; and part 3 assesses writing. It also describes monthly exams that are held three times per term and assess various skills, and quizzes that test recently covered lesson topics without advance notice of dates.

1. UNIDAD EDUCATIVVA DE TUNGURAHUA “MONS. LEONIDAS PROAÑO”
ENGLISH AREA
EXAMS AND THEIR CONTENTS
EXAMS
Proficiency Exam
Monthly Exams
Quizzes
PROFICIENCY EXAM
The exam is administered three times a year (September, January, June) and is
composed of two stages.
The first stage is designed to assess grammar, vocabulary and reading skills. Students
who score 50% or more in this stage are admitted to the second stage.
The second stage focuses on assessing writing and listening skills. The required
percentages of the scores received from the first and second stages are added and
students whose total scores are 60% or more pass the exam.
CONTENT OF THE EXAM
The Proficiency Exam is prepared and administered by the Assessment and Evaluation
Unit of the School of Foreign Languages, Erciyes University. The exam, which aims at
upper-intermediate level, consists of three main parts:
Part 1: Grammar, Vocabulary, Reading, Functional Usage of Language
Part 2: Listening
Part 3: Writing
In order to take parts 2 and 3 of the exam, students are required to score 50% or more
in the first part. The total score is calculated by adding the prescribed weightings of the
three parts of the proficiency exam, which are 60%, 15% and 25% respectively.
Students with total scores of 60% or more pass the exam. The exam is given on two
separate days in two sessions. The first part of the exam is administered on the first
day. Students who have passed the first part take the other parts of the second session
on the previously announced day.
PROFICIENCY EXAMINATION
PART 1: GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY, READING AND FUNCTIONAL USE OF LANGUAGE
The first part of the exam is a 100-multiple choice (5 choices) test which consists of 4
sub-parts. The prescribed duration is approximately 120–150 minutes.

2. 1. Grammar: These questions aim at measuring students’ knowledge of different
grammar patterns of English. It targets the usage of suitable patterns in interrogative,
affirmative and negative sentences and in dialogues. In this part, there are 45
questions in total.
2. Vocabulary: This section consists of 15 questions which aim to test students’
knowledge of the most commonly used words both in spoken and written English.
3. Functional Usage of Language: These questions test students’ abilities to use
appropriate phrases and expressions encountered in daily life (e.g. making
reservations, asking for directions, giving opinion, etc.). There are 10 questions in this
section.
4. Reading: This section consists of 30 questions, the majority of which aims to test
students’ reading skills such as spotting facts and details in the context of a reading
text, guessing the meanings of specific words within the context they appear,
identifying cause and effect relationships, and making inferences from the whole text.
This section also has some questions which test students’ ability to spot the irrelevant
sentence in a paragraph and to choose the best sentence from the choices that
meaningfully fits into a paragraph.
PART 2: LISTENING
A central broadcasting system is used in listening exams. In the exam, there are several multiple choice
questions (4 choices) for each audio-recording. The audio-recordings include dialogues from daily life,
monologues on various topics, and excerpts from radio or television programmes. There are 20
questions in this section.
Students are allotted some time to read the question before listening. Each audio-
recording is played twice and students mark their choices on optical answer sheets.
Students who fail to come to the listening exam on time are not allowed to take the
exam.
PART 3: WRITING
In the writing exam students are expected to write an essay about a specific topic. It is
required that the essays are about the given topic and in the expected type (e.g.
Comparison and Contrast, Pros and Cons, Opinion, Cause and Effect, etc.). The
prescribed duration for the writing exam is approximately 50 minutes.
Essays are evaluated by two raters separately. The criteria below should be met as a
whole for a well-written essay.
1. Content and Ideas: The content of an essay should relate to the given topic, and the
ideas expressed should be rich and supported with examples and explanations.
2. Organization: The essay should have a suitable title, an introduction, a body and a
conclusion paragraph. Paragraphs should contain sentences that present, support and
conclude the theme (topic, supporting, concluding sentences and thesis statement).
The essay should have conjunctions and transitions where necessary. The word limit

3. should also be considered for the essay not to be too short or too long (normally 150-
180 words).
3. Grammar: Grammar structures should be used correctly and appropriately to write
a clear and easy to follow essay. Appropriate tone and style (direct/indirect,
personal/impersonal) formal/informal) should be used.
4. Vocabulary: A rich variety of clear and appropriate vocabulary should be used
avoiding too many repetitions. Words should be used correctly in terms of their
meanings, parts of speech and spelling.
Essays which do not relate to the given topic are not evaluated.
MONTHLY EXAMS
Being held three times a term, there are six monthly exams in an academic year. The
dates of the exams are announced in the academic calendar.
The contents of the exams are given in the below table.
1st Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary-Reading
2nd Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary- Reading-Listening-Writing
3rd Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary- Reading-Listening-Writing-
Speaking
4th Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary-Reading
5th Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary- Reading-Listening-Writing
6th Monthly Exam Grammar-Vocabulary- Reading-Listening-Writing-
Speaking
The contents of the monthly exams are specified in parallel with the course book and
announced prior to the exams.
QUIZZES
Quizzes have questions to test students on lesson topics they have recently studied. The
number of quizzes is determined at the beginning of the academic year.
The dates of the quizzes are not announced in the academic calendar in advance. Their
contents and dates are posted on the student bulletin board several days before
although the class hours in which they will be given are not and therefore students
who fail to attend those classes get a score of “0”.