A score of 30 correct questions minimum is required to pass the objective exam. A score of 8 or higher out of 12 possible points is required to pass the essay exam, graded by a rotating faculty panel of readers. Students are permitted to use dictionaries and Bibles for the essay exam only. The EPE is given the first week of October and the last week of February. It is held on two evenings.
Students choose only one evening to attend.
Registration occurs through the English Department and the Writing Center at the beginning of each semester. The Writing Center owns a collection of composition and style handbooks, reading textbooks, literature anthologies, journalism textbooks, technical writing books, and writing exercise workbooks. In addition, the Center owns a growing collection of contemporary literature including works by Nobel-Prize winning authors. Authors include Czeslaw Milosz, Seamus Heaney, Camilo Jose Cela, Jaroslav Seifert, J.M. Coetzee, Elias Canetti, V.S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie, to name a few. Books in the Contemporary Literature section circulate only for two weeks at a time.