ALR is a combined reading, writing and speaking assessment of academic English set by ACCESS Center. It is administered in August to all new MM students required to submit official test scores – including those exempted from the English interview conducted during the Admissions process. If you accept an offer to study a Master of Music with Tianjin Juilliard, you will be required to take this placement assessment.  

ALR helps Tianjin Juilliard determine whether academic reading and writing or other language support would benefit you during your graduate studies by placing students into one of three levels:  

Level 1: Structured Support Required Learner 
Support activities include taking an English for Academic Purposes course called Academic Communication and English Research Project, participating in a mandatory, personalized one-to-one tutoring program as well as attending mandatory academic skills workshops. All activities occur during the fall semester in year 1, and upon academic advisement, students can elect to continue personalized support in ACCESS Center during the spring semester. 

Level 2: Supported Learner 
Support activities include participating in a mandatory, personalized one-to-one tutoring program as well as attending mandatory academic skills workshops. All activities occur during the fall semester in year 1, and upon academic advisement, students can elect to continue personalized support in ACCESS Center during the spring semester. 

Level 3: Fully Prepared (non-supported) Learner 
Students who attain this level after taking ALR in August are not required to take any mandatory courses or participate in mandatory tutoring/workshops, etc. However, they may attend ACCESS Center for any of these services at any time during their studies at TJS, when the need arises. 

The assessment has 3 parts:

Part 1: Students have 30 to 45 minutes to read and annotate 2 to 3 English-language academic texts related to a musical topic. (No reading help is given. Dictionaries are not allowed.) 

Part 2: Students have 45 minutes to compose a 250 to 300-word argumentative essay in English based on a prompt. In support of their argument, as part of their writing, students must utilize and cite ideas and/or information from at least 2 of the academic texts they have read in Part 1. (Students must use information from both academic texts when only 2 texts are assigned.) 

Part 3: Students are randomly divided into small groups. These groups then participate in a 10 to 15-minute discussion during which students present and defend the opinions they wrote about in their argumentative essay.