The 2025 Writing Proficiency exam is a 750-word, hand written, two-hour essay examination intended to ensure that Hofstra students display competence as writers, regardless of major or how many essay exams they have taken. Please bring two pens. We’ll provide the Blue Books and clean copies of the text.
The WPE asks students to write a focused and well-organized essay that engages with an argument they locate in a reading provided by the WSR Department. Here students are encouraged to reflect on their own relation to an argument in the text, stake a claim regarding the validity of the argument and their relation to it, and defend that argument with evidence from the text and their lived experience. Successful essays will have an explicit thesis developed through coherent paragraphs that support assertions with quotations from the text.
While your essay should include some context—both with respect to the article’s claims and your lived experience—your essay should not merely summarize the text or become a personal narrative. Vitally, you must make an original argument using support from the text and your lived experience. The essay will be graded on how well you express your argument and support your assertions with evidence from the text.
How to Register for the Proficiency Exam
Registering for the Proficiency Exam is just like registering for any other Hofstra course. See instructions here. The course code for the Proficiency Exam is PROF. If you select it, you should see your exam options.
Tips for Passing the Proficiency Exam
Grading Criteria
| 4 (HIGH PASS) | 3 (PASS) | 2 (FAIL) | 1 (FAIL – 2A) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thesis | The essay takes an insightful position that demonstrates critical engagement with the required reading and the Uploaded Essay. | The essay takes a supported position and consistently develops it with references to the required texts. | The essay tends to summarize or merely to assert that there are differences and/or similarities among the required texts. | The point of the essay may be difficult to determine. |
| Evidence | Claims and textual references are integrated into the paragraph in rhetorically compelling ways. | Claims in the paragraphs are tied to explicit textural references. | Claims in the paragraphs are often unclear or unsupported. | Claims in paragraphs are unfocused. |
| Citation | The essay demonstrates mastery of a citation system (MLA, APA, etc.). Work Cited is not required in Response Essay. | Quotations are responsibly handled and effectively integrated into the essay. | Quotations are frequently mishandled (i.e., merely “dropped” into paragraph without adequate context or explanation). | The essay may rely entirely upon quotation, or it may exclude textual references altogether. |
| Grammar and Mechanics | The essay displays a command of grammatical and stylistic principles. The sentences are well structured and rhetorically effective. | The essay displays occasional grammatical errors, but the majority of the sentences are correct. | The essay displays a pattern of grammatical error in one or two critical areas (e.g., sentence boundaries, agreement, punctuation, word choice). | The essay displays a pattern of grammatical error in several critical areas (e.g., sentence boundaries, agreement, punctuation, word choice). |
