The yearly Advanced Placement exam-grading marathon has begun. There is a scoring session for each AP test, and in English 2,500 teachers — half at the high school level, half college-level — spend 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day for a week scoring Literature and Language essays written by more than 700,000 high school students. The reading remains one of the only ways high school students can be measured by college standards. The College Board has always made the case that its tests mirror college work, and as a college teacher and reader of AP exams, I agree that AP does indeed measure skills we would like our college students to possess.

On what do I base that conclusion? I have explored the relatively new College Learning Assessment exam, designed to gauge whether students in college have the skills needed for the workplace. The released tests, and information I received during a CLA workshop, have confirmed striking similarities between the testing philosophies of AP and CLA.