Who should take the ConCEPT?

• Newly admitted undergraduate students who have been assigned ESL 202 (Developing Academic English Skills) and ESL 204 (Refining Academic English Skills) as program deficiencies based on their language proficiency scores (TOEFL, IELTS, or others)
• Undergraduate, graduate, and visiting students without ESL requirements who wish to take Credit ESL on an elective basis

The ConCEPT does not allow prospective students to meet the Language Proficiency Requirement for admission (see website),nor is it available to students who have not yet established minimum proficiency.

Test Description

The ConCEPT is a theme-based test drawing on lecture and reading material characteristic of first-year undergraduate courses in terms of linguistic difficulty. The test is taken in a computer lab on Concordia's downtown campus and is delivered on the Moodle platform.

The ConCEPT consists of the following tasks:

Listening and Speaking

Students will:

1. listen to a 5-minute academic lecture and answer a short series of multiple choice questions
2. listen to the lecture a second time and take notes on paper provided
3. record an oral summary of the lecture (using notes)
4. record a short series of sentences as well as an extended text in a read-aloud task

Language Use

Students will:

1. complete words in an academic text passage on the test theme
2. rewrite a series of sentences using a given key word

Reading and Writing

Students will:

1. read two academic texts on the test theme and answer a short series of multiple choice questions
2. take notes on the two texts using paper provided
3. write a text of approximately 300-400 words on a subject prompt related to the readings (using notes)

The ConCEPT takes approximately two hours to complete. Placement recommendations are posted on the MyConcordia Portal five (5) business days after the test.

Preparation for the test: Students with confirmed appointments for the ConCEPT will be directed to a practice test accessible on Moodle. The purpose of the practice test is to familiarize students with the computer interface and task types they will work with on their test date. This is the only recommended preparation activity; no books or banks of practice tests are provided.