Data were collected for a brief objective English test, the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE), and for subsequent essay writing performance in four institutions. Data were then pooled across the four institutions and subclassified into four groups: males, females, majorities, and minorities. The groups were then compared with respect to TSWE score distributions, correlations of TSWE scores with later performance in freshman English courses and regressions of essay scores on TSWE scores. Neither the correlational nor the regression analyses suggested any substantial differences in prediction among the groups. Statistically significant differences were obtained, however, between the slopes of the regression lines for males and females and between the intercepts of the regression lines for majorities and minorities. The regression lines thus indicated that females scoring high on the TSWE tended to write better essays than males scoring high on the TSWE. Conversely, low-scoring females tended to write worse essays than low-scoring males. The majority and minority regression line comparisons indicated that, for the same TSWE score, majorities tended to write better essays than minorities throughout the range of TSWE scores. However, these differences were not of sufficient size to be of any practical significance. (Author/CTM)