For Invited Students
FOR INVITED STUDENTS
The CLA is being administered to 100 freshmen in the fall and 100 seniors in the spring in an effort to gauge the effectiveness of colleges to improve the critical thinking, problem solving, and written communications skills of their students.Only first-time full-time freshmen with less than 15 credits and full-time seniors with more than 105 credits (45 credits in associates programs) are eligible to participate. In addition, seniors must have started at the same school as freshmen.Participation in the CLA is by invitation only. Colleges have lists of eligible students that have been randomly selected to represent their school.For more information about the structure of CLA tasks, please see the CLA Student Guide <pdf>.
INVITED STUDENTS
You have been randomly chosen to participate in the CLA.The CLA requires 2 hours of your time for which you will be compensated with a gift card $50 in value.In the CLA you will be asked to either analyze and respond to an argument or use your problem-solving skills to answer questions about a hypothetical but realistic situation. For a sample of the type of questions you will be asked, you can click here.Your performance on the CLA will not affect your student status or class standing.Your participation is important in helping to demonstrate your school’s contribution to your learning. The more students who participate, the more confident your college can be about its results.Please respond to the invitation you have received and sign up for a CLA session that is convenient for your class schedule.
PARTICIPATING STUDENTS
If you received an invitation to participate in the CLA, but have not yet scheduled an exam appointment, please contact Testing Office at (718) 262-2010.In the CLA exam session, you will be randomly assigned to do a performance task, or two analytic writing tasks (Make-an-Argument and Critique-an-Argument).If you do not have an SAT or ACT score on file, you will be asked to take a short multiple-choice Scholastic Level Exam (SLE) after the CLA to estimate your Entering Academic Ability when you entered CUNY. All community college students will take the SLE as part of the CLA.Familiarize yourself with the format of the CLA. CLA practice website.Scoring of the CLA
Your responses to the CLA tasks will be scored along 4 dimensions:
Analytic Reasoning & Evaluation
Has a clearly developed and explained thesisEvaluates whether evidence is credible or unreliableProvides analysis and synthesis of the evidenceWriting Effectiveness
Is well-organized and logically developed, with each idea building upon the lastWriting Mechanics
Shows strong command of writing mechanics and vocabularyProblem Solving
Draws conclusions that follow from the provided evidenceA complete description of the CLA scoring criteria is provided by theThe CLA Scoring Rubric – Description of Performance Dimensions by Performance Levels <pdf>Your CLA results will be available in late February if you test in the fall; and in August if you test in the spring. If you entered a valid email address when completing the online CLA profile, you will receive an email notification with instructions on how to retrieve your results.