Becoming a junior in college can be great; you are finally done with general education and can focus on your actual profession. You have finished all of the requirements and it seems like you’re in the home stretch. But wait; don’t get too excited, there is something else: It’s time to break out that pen and take the Writing Proficiency Exam or WPE.

A student in their junior year should have already passed two general education courses that explain how to construct an argumentative essay.

California’s K-12 education system isn’t the best, but all high schools offer courses in English that cover essay construction as well. When I sat down to take the WPE last month, I wondered how many of my peers really needed to take the exam and whether the topic of the paper was relevant to various majors.

The WPE examination itself stems from the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) that was established by the trustees of the CSU system in 1977. The WPE program was created a few years later. Students may fulfill the requirement by receiving a minimum score of seven on the WPE or by earning a “C” or bette in English 109.

A small committee chosen by Writing Proficiency Exam Coordinator Jon Price decides the topics for the examinations. Price also selects faculty members at Sacramento State that are paid to read and grade the exams.

“The question committee is very small, but they work up the topics themselves; anyone can submit an idea for a topic, but very few do,” Price said.

Facial surgery and whether Sacramento should build a new arena for the Kings have been topics used in the past. A student that does not stay in tune with daily news or local politics may have no knowledge on a topic, such as a sports arena, making it difficult for him or her to compose a six to eight page essay about it.

The question committee chooses topics for the exam based on the questions’ mainstream appeal and accessibility. Accessibility and the appeal of a topic, such as facial surgery, is not likely going to be common in the minds of most Sac State students.

“I have heard very few complaints about the accessibility of the topics,” Price said.

Senior interior design major Shawna Richtsmier, who failed her first WPE exam about facial surgery, feels that the topics are irrelevant to her major. “Students do not benefit from the test because we get so much writing experience in our classes already,” she said. “I will never write anything on such topics in the future.”

The topics of the exams, accessible and appealing or not, are not the basis for the WPE exam. The idea is to improve the writing skills of students who may be lacking in that area. However, students, if they have gone through traditional education until their junior year in college, have had plenty of instruction on writing.

English is required through all four years of high school, as well as the lower division critical thinking courses in college. The newly instated exit exams for high school dovetail with the writing required for senior project essays. Three-quarters of the students interviewed for this story said they first learned how to construct an argumentative essay early in high school.

Still, according to the requirements for the WPE exam, some students seem to have need for further assistance in their writing skills.

“Despite passing writing courses from a variety of other institutions spread throughout the state, as our students do, some students have not yet achieved the level of proficiency our faculty desires,” Price said.

That proficiency must come at a very high standard if more than 65 percent of the students get a grade of eight on the WPE. Scores higher than that are very uncommon and less than one percent receive a perfect score of 12.

If the level of proficiency is not met according to faculty standards, the students are offered the option of a writing workshop. During the workshop, students are instructed on different approaches to writing, given sample examinations and participate in a question-and-answer period.

However, students such as Richtsmier have taken the workshop and have still failed the WPE. These workshops do not provide the level of instruction necessary to facilitate the writing proficiency required by the faculty of this campus.

“Individual student writing cannot be responded to in these large and comparatively brief sessions,” Price said.

A business major who wished for his name not be revealed said, “The first time I took the workshop, they basically just told us to take a strong point of view and didn’t really go over any writing techniques.” He also failed the exam.

With its broad topics and safeguard workshops that don’t do much benefit to students who are trying to meet the standards of Sac State faculty, the WPE seems quite dubious.

However, some students do see the benefit of the exam.

“Writing is hugely important in the working world, and an exam like this is important because the level of difficulty in our classes varies with teachers,” said senior and computer science major Hao Le. “This test makes sure everyone is on the same level.”

It very well may be a good way to prove one’s ability to write, but by the time students take the WPE in college, they should already be able to construct an argumentative essay. There shouldn’t be another blockade to graduation, especially in the form of a timed, topically subjective recreation of the high school SAT 9 test. It is a requirement of the CSU system, so the university can’t disregard the program; but the university can improve the situation by querying students about the topics and by restructuring some of the proficiency standards in grading.

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Blake Ellington can be reached at [email protected]