BACKGROUND To contextualize the study we are reporting in this article, we first need to delineate the broader context of the large-scale assessment project within which our study is situated. More specifically, we need to explain the writing construct and the writing task development, because these aspects form the basis of the a priori task classifications in terms of targeted CEFR levels, and thus the backdrop for our empirical analyses of possible cut-score suggestions in line with the CEFR levels. Following the background explained in this section, the Methodology section then describes the actual study within which our data were collected.
Evaluation of Educational Standards in Germany The broader background of the study reported in this article is a large-scale standards-based assessment project in Germany. There, the CEFR is currently used by the Institute for Educational Progress (Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen) to develop large item pools to test reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and writing for English as a first foreign language. These tests are used to evaluate the German National Educational Standards (NES), which were commissioned in 2003 by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education (Kultusministerkonferenz). For a comprehensive description of the overall test development process generally, the task development processes for specific competences apart from writing, the key documents that guided these processes, and the political context within which all of this work is embedded, we refer the reader to Rupp, Vock, Harsch, and Köller (2008).
For the purpose of this article, it is important to note that the NES target students in two different school tracks, one leading to a basic school leaving exam at the end of Grade 9 (Hauptschulabschluss [HSA]) and the other leading to a secondary school qualification at a higher level at the end of Grade 10 (Mittlerer Schulabschluss [MSA]), qualifying either for vocational training or further secondary school. The NES for the first foreign language are based on the CEFR and adopt its model of communicative competence (see Table 1).2
