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English Placement Examination for
Entering Stanford Graduate Students

The EFS English Placement Exam took place on September 16, 2009. If you were required to take that test by Graduate Admissions and missed it, please contact triesen@stanford.edu as soon as possible to arrange a makeup test.

 

The Stanford English Placement exam is given to entering graduate students who have been required to take it by the Graduate Admissions Office. The exam is designed to assess readiness to begin graduate study using English as the medium of instruction.  Most international graduate students admitted to Stanford have read academic material in English for a number of years; therefore, the focus of the exam is on listening, speaking, and writing.

  • Written Composition
    This is a 60-minute exam in which you will read a short passage and write an essay based on it. Write in an academic style. You may not use a dictionary or other aids. The topic will be suitable for students from any country and field of study.
  • Listening Comprehension
    This is a 30-minute, 50 item exam in which you will listen to a brief statement, look at three drawings, and decide which drawing fits the statement. This part tests your ability to comprehend an utterance of rapidly spoken English and make a quick judgment based on that understanding.
  • Oral Interview
    This is a 30 minute interview with an EFS lecturer, typically scheduled a day or two after the other exams. It is used to assess your conversational English proficiency and to give you the results of the other parts of the exam.

There are no preparation guides for this examination. We advise you to practice listening and writing as much as you can in the weeks before the exam.

At the end of the exam, you will be given a form listing any required or recommended courses. Required courses must be completed before graduation will be allowed. Note that it is possible to challenge specific EFS requirements through additional examinations, but 1) students must wait at least six months after the placement exam to request the challenge and 2) only one challenge is allowed for a given requirement. Please contact efs@stanford.edu for further information.

Note that this is different from the Teaching Assistant screening exam. For information on that exam, click here.
 

Updated September 18, 2009