Exam Administration

NEWL is administered to high school students on school premises, such as in a computer lab or classroom. If your high school cannot facilitate the examination, it is essential for you as the examinee to find a nearby high school or institution willing to take on this administrative responsibility.

Below is a list of institutions with a history of hosting external students for the NEWL exam. While we cannot guarantee their availability, we strongly recommend that you reach out to them if your primary school cannot administer the exam. Please ensure you confirm the exam date(s) and available space prior to submitting your NEWL application.

Network Requirements

The testing center needs to provide a minimum of 1.5 MBPS, per student.
You can easily check your bandwidth by going to: www.speedtest.net.

Computer Requirements

The following requirements must be met for each machine to administer the exam:

Hardware

Mac or Windows workstations or laptops or Chromebooks

4GB+ RAM

A working set of headphones (built-in microphone recommended but not required).  Student-owned headphones or earbuds are not recommended but are not prohibited if the school cannot provide them.

A working microphone that can record clear audio without interference. 

Software

MAC OSX (recent), Windows 10+ or Chrome OS (recent)

A Web Browser (Chrome (recommended), Firefox, or Microsoft Edge). 

Safari is not supported because it does not comply with Internet standards for audio capture.

NOTE: Browsers will need to be set to accept cookies from exams.actesting.org

At least one week prior to your exam, you will need to certify as many workstations in your lab as the number of students tested (with a few extras in case of emergency). We recommend that, for every five students, you have one extra machine set up. Please see the table below.

Extra Machines

We advise having extra computers in case of unforeseen issues with one device. We also highly recommend all laptops and Chromebooks have power cords available throughout the exam.