Proposes that students' problems controlling the rhetorical features of school discourse (inventing a purpose within one's writing that will also serve the external purpose of impressing a grader) are as fundamental to the difficulties of basic writers in college writing as their syntactical and mechanical errors. (SR)

Presents remarks on essay testing made by Edward M. White, an account of procedures for developing essay questions for the California State University and Colleges (CSUC) English Equivalency Examination, the 1974 essay scale with accompanying writing samples, and the questions and scale used in the 1975 test. (RL)

Describes the procedures that a community college used in instituting an exit examination for a developmental writing course. Discusses reasons for the policies that were set up and tells what has been learned as a result of using the exit examination. (RL)

Recounts the rationale, development, construction, and design of an essay examination format that accounts for teacher differences and provides some objectivity in observation and measurement that is usually lacking in such writing examinations. Notes that one of the features of the format is computer readable scoring. (RL)