This paper describes the development of the Benesse Proficiency Test of English Communication, which was created for the Benesse Corporation of Japan. The Benesse test was developed in response to Japan's movement toward more communicative English language teaching and testing. It was intended to test language used in authentic communication. The paper also discusses statistical data from the first operational test administration. The data examined are from 35,000 Japanese students who took the advanced level operational form 1 in 1998. Data were analyzed to evaluate the performance of the instrument, focusing on the observed relationships, or intercorrelations, among the skills of listening, reading, and writing. Results indicated that the intercorrelations among the subtests were similar to those of other tests, which provides validation of this new test. (Contains 18 references and 3 tables.) (SM)