The METU English Proficiency Exam is well worth mentioning in the historical account of the SFL. Those whose memories have been drawn upon about METU-EPE, which was initially referred to as the 'Exemption Exam', later as the 'Proficiency Exam', have reported that until the early-1970s, the exam was prepared and administered by the English Language Preparatory School. When Nevin İnal returned from the U.S. having obtained her M.A. degree in the field of language testing, the Head of the Humanities Department, Prof. Hüseyin Batuhan asked her to take charge of the endeavor. It is understood that this was put into effect in either 1974 or 1975.

The practice continued for some time after the SFL was established in the early-1980s. Occasionally, the Directorate of the School had the administrators of the two departments convene in order to review and provide feedback on one another’s exams, namely, the Final Exam of the Department of Basic English and the Proficiency Exam prepared by the Department of Modern Languages, which was administered in September.

A while later, the two departments started to produce the exam collaboratively.

Today, The English proficiency Exam (METU-EPE) is being written by a joint commission under the supervision of the SFL, and is administered to around 8,000 test takers yearly. Showing a correlation of r: 0.80 with TOEFL, METU-EPE has become a reliable test battery that measures proficiency levels in English.

Prepared by: Prof. Dr. Hüsnü ENGİNARLAR

Interviewees: Prof. Dr. Ayten BEAR, Doç. Dr. Joshua BEAR, Öğr. Gör. Nevin İNAL, Öğr. Gör. Naz DİNO