I just took a test at school called the “WPA” last weekend. WPA stands for Writing Proficiency Assessment. This is a kind of test that all university juniors have to take, which means that you are REQU
IRED to take it during your time in SDSU as well.
I’m a good writer. I don’t often say I’m good at something because most of the time I know I’m not, hahah. As brought up in my older posts, I suck at vocabulary. Not to mention long sophisticated words, sometimes I even come up with situations when I just forget a real simple Vietnamese or English word. It is often irritating.
Anyway, this WPA was said to focus on transferring students. SDSU writing system based a lot on “Rhetorical Analysis” and it is taught in your first years in university, that’s why transferring students would likely to have more challenges in this test.
The WPA is graded from 0-12 points. A score of 8 or below requires you to take two writing classes before taking any other upper division writing classes while a score from 8 to 9 requires you to take one. That is why most people are trying to get a 10. But believe me, IT IS HARD. Only about 11% of the candidates scored a 10 last exam.
However, there are many ways to help you to prepare for the WPA.
More detailed info for the WPA: http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/testofc/wpa_req.html
Examples and grading rubic: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gwar/
Workshop dates: http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/testofc/wpa_wkshops.html
Posted by Sean on November 1, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I took the WPA and finally passed with a 10. Last time I did the review offered at state and only got a 7, so this time around I took a class offered by http://www.wpareview.com. Their class is pretty cheap and you don’t pay unless you pass the test. Good luck on passing!