Improving on the Basic Egg: The M‐c Cloze

An open‐ended cloze procedure was modified by item‐analytical and error‐analytical techniques. A short (33 items) multiple‐choice (M‐C) test was the result of that modification. The new test was administered as an experimental adjunct to an established placement examination at a large university in the eastern United States. The M‐C cloze took less than twenty minutes to administer and score, yet rivaled the placement accurary of the much longer placement examination. Substantial correlation was found between the M‐C cloze and the sub‐tests of the placement examination. The study provides evidence for the feasibility of vastly reducing the time spent in placement testing in established English as a second language programs without sacrificing the quality of the information derived from that testing.