Academic Language Skills Analysis
Academic Language Skills Analysis (ALSA) is a short diagnostic quiz to identify your strengths and areas for improvement of English language skills for academic study. Academic language is crucial to academic performance and success, and requires different skills from everyday language and communication.
Developed in-house by expert academic language advisers at Monash University, the ALSA quiz assesses key academic language skills, such as grammar and vocabulary, reading comprehension, and information streamlining. It is taken electronically on the ALSA Moodle page under supervised conditions.
Who should take the skills analysis test?
ALSA is recommended for all Monash students, especially at the beginning of your course or degree. It is an instrument that can provide you with valuable information about your academic language skills, regardless of language background. Based on your individual results and academic language needs, you will also be referred to appropriate academic support.
ALSA results
Your ALSA results do not directly contribute towards, or influence your academic grades. The results from the quiz are used to direct you to appropriate resources, workshops and one-on-one support to enhance your academic performance. Results are also shared with your faculties according to the Monash University data protection and privacy procedure.
Test format
The ALSA quiz includes three sections: grammar and vocabulary, reading comprehension, and text streamlining. You will be given a series of questions that test language competency in an academic setting. You will complete the ALSA quiz on Monash’s Learning Management System, Moodle. At the end of each quiz, you will receive your scores, and links to resources you may find helpful in continuing to build your academic skills.
Below is the overview of the three main sections in the ALSA quiz:
Grammar and vocabulary
- This section assesses vocabulary range and grammar in an academic context.
- You’ll work with grammar and vocabulary as they appear in real academic contexts, such as complex sentences, how ideas are linked, and choosing words that fit an academic tone.
Reading comprehension
- This section assesses how well you can read and understand complex academic texts like those you encounter in your course.
- The questions focus on identifying main ideas, understanding supporting evidence, interpreting meaning that isn’t always stated directly, and recognising how ideas are connected across a text.
- The aim is to see how effectively you can read academic materials accurately and efficiently, especially under time pressure.
Text streamlining
- This section focuses on how well you can select, prioritise, and reshape information for different academic purposes and audience groups.
- You’ll practise skills such as identifying key points, removing unnecessary detail, and adapting content without changing its meaning.
- These tasks reflect common university activities like summarising readings, adapting material for different audiences, and synthesising information from sources.
Privacy
Monash University values the privacy of every individual’s personal information and is committed to the protection of that information from unauthorised use and disclosure except where permitted by law. For information about the handling of your personal information please see the Student Privacy Collection Statement available online. For more information about Data Protection and Privacy at Monash University please see our Data Protection and Privacy Procedure.