Discusses the problems of readers' different responses to essay test passages and the implications for the subsequent writing assignment. Describes a model of the writing assessment episode and discusses four generalizations about writing task interpretation. (HTH)

Some of the issues, history, and approaches in the testing of second language writing skills are reviewed. It is argued that because writing serves many important functions in the lives of individuals and activities that speech cannot do equally well, it is time to stop viewing writing as secondary to speech and to accord it equal attention. Most…

Contradictions are inherent in the evaluation of placement test writing, contradictions that at once value and devalue writers and writing, readers and reading. In testing, the evidence for the essay's effectiveness rests almost entirely on the writer's choice of linguistic forms. The characteristics that distinguish evaluation in competency…

In examining why performance scores on writing tests so often fail to improve in neat positive intervals for individuals and groups, testers have sought the answer in differences in test conditions on progressive retestings. Two other sources of performance variation are possible: the U-shaped learning curve or phenomenon of apparent regression…