The CLA measures are designed to test for critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication skills.
The assessment consists of open-ended questions, is administered to students online, and controls for incoming academic ability.
The CLA was first launched in 2000 by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), a national nonprofit organization based in New York City.
[2] Of the entire test, the most well-developed and sophisticated part is its performance task component,[3] in which students are given ninety minutes to respond to a writing prompt that is associated with a set of background documents.
[5] The design of both the prompts and the criteria for evaluation demonstrates the CLA's focus on complex, holistic, real-world problem-solving as a measurement of high level learning.