This study presents a new version of the cloze procedure used as a placement test for foreign students enrolled in an English language program for non-native speakers. Called the New Cloze Test (NCT), the test was administered to 136 foreign students who were beginning college students and who had not been in the United States longer than one month prior to testing. Two other groups of foreign students served as criterion groups. The results show that the NCT, with further refinement, can become a useful measure of non-native speakers' English language proficiency. (RL)