EAP test now required for CSU admission

New updates were recently added to the Early Assessment Program that all eleventh grade students have to take during the spring semester. Starting from this 2011-12 school year, high school students are required to pass the EAP if they are planning to apply for a California State University or a community college. Students who don’t pass the EAP exam will need to demonstrate college readiness in other ways.

For those who are not aware, the EAP is an academic program that helps high school students meet college readiness standards in language arts and mathematics.

The EAP exam is a 45-minute writing task, and students are given a prompt, where they read and analyze a short passage.

“The EAP is a good indicator of the text you’ll read in college,” said American Literature teacher Elisa Frozena.

Students’ results are mailed home in early August along with the STAR test scores.

Although it is better for students who are interested in going to a college after high school to pass the EAP the first time around, it is not the end of the world if one doesn’t pass.  Many different options are available for those who fail the exam: these different options include scoring a 500 or higher on the SAT Critical Reading test, or passing the English Placement Test and Entry-Level Mathematics Exam.

“For the juniors who don’t pass, it’s recommended to take the Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) senior year,” said Frozena.

Many juniors found that the EAP exam was not as easy as they thought it would be. According to students, the essay prompts were vague and hard to write on.

“The prompts were really difficult and they were definitely harder to write about than the SATs. Since I want to do well, it does worry me, especially since it will affect me in the future,” said junior Jolinna Nguyen.

Junior Kristie Huie, who agrees with Nguyen, can also see EAP as a good way to prepare students for the future.

“The EAP is a good measure to see how students are doing in school,” said Huie.

In past years, statistics show that students had a low passing rate of 30 percent on the EAP. Since the EAP will affect students with their college admissions, the passing rate is expected to dramatically increase in years to come.