Press Release - December 12, 2006

Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric® Writing Assessment Program Scores More Than 370,000 Essays for Graduate Management Admission Council

Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric® automated essay scoring system supports the Analytical Writing Assessment Portion of the GMAT® with accurate, reliable, and consistent scoring of writing

Newtown, Pa., December 12, 2006 - Vantage Learning (www.VantageLearning.com), the world's leading provider of online assessment tools, has successfully scored more than 370,000 essays in 2006 for the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) portion of the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®). Under a separate agreement among ACT and Pearson VUE with the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®), ACT is responsible for GMAT AWA prompt development and scoring. ACT provides essay scoring by human raters that are combined with automated essay scoring provided by Vantage Learning. GMAC is a nonprofit education association of leading business schools worldwide dedicated to creating access to and disseminating information about graduate business and management education. The organization owns and administers the GMAT—the only test designed specifically for business schools—more than 240,000 times annually. More than 1,800 schools and 3,000 programs around the world use the assessment exam.

As part of the contract, IntelliMetric®, Vantage Learning's automated essay scoring engine, scores applicants' responses to two types of prompts within each GMAT AWA assessment. IntelliMetric is an artificial intelligence program capable of scoring open-ended and constructed-response questions with documented levels of accuracy and reliability exceeding that of human expert scorers. Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric consistently applies the pooled knowledge (scoring rubric) of expert scorers to the essays it receives.

We were proud that ACT selected Vantage last year, and are even more delighted with the ability of our team to support ACT and the GMAC organizations with high-quality technology services to support their customers throughout 2006 for a very important, visible assessment: the GMAT," says Peter Murphy, CEO and Chairman, Vantage Labs. "Vantage is providing automated essay scoring for several ACT programs. We have found the ACT human essay scoring to be outstanding and, combined with IntelliMetric for the computer-based scoring system, unbeatable."

After a thorough evaluation of Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric automated essay-scoring program, ACT determined the program was able to accurately and reliably score the GMAT essays. During the evaluation, IntelliMetric scored 500 responses to six GMAT test prompts. IntelliMetric showed very similar results to human raters, with a perfect and/or adjacent agreement 96 percent to 98 percent of the time. These original results are consistent with the actual implementation results of more than 370,000 essays submitted and scored.

"We are very pleased with the service levels provided by Vantage, and the consistency by which we can assure a quality, reliable score for the AWA portion of the GMAT," says Larry Rudner, Chief Pyschometrician and Vice President of Research and Development at GMAC. "The GMAT is a very important assessment for students entering graduate business schools and the ability to write well is critical. We're pleased with the results of our joint efforts in 2006 to quickly and accurately score a record number of essays." Delivery of the ACT human and Vantage automated scoring of the GMAT AWA began in early 2006 and will continue in 2007.

About Vantage Learning

With over 146 million online test transactions last year, Vantage Learning is the world's leading provider of online assessment and automated essay scoring. Recognized as the gold standard for scoring quality, consistency, reliability, and scalability, Vantage Learning's award-winning education tools meet the needs of educators and school administrators, businesses and government agencies that need a comprehensive Internet-based test authoring, delivery, scoring, and reporting platform. Vantage developed IntelliMetric®, which administers and scores responses to open-ended questions over the Internet using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Vantage Learning's MY Access!® instructional writing program won a Codie Award in 2006 for Best Instructional Program: English/Language Arts – Secondary, was a Codie Awards dual winner in 2005, and was a 2004 Award of Excellence winner from Technology and Learning magazine. Eduventures selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies.

About ACT

ACT has a well-established reputation for excellence and integrity in test development. ACT has nearly two decades of experience in computer-based testing and has delivered 4.2 million computer-adaptive tests to 1.2 million students. Currently, 4,500 colleges and universities use the company's admission services.

About the Graduate Management Admission Council

Founded in 1953, the Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) began as an association of nine business schools with the goal of developing a standardized test to help select qualified applicants. Today, GMAC owns and operates the GMAT, which remains the only standardized test specifically designed for graduate and business management programs. It is taken more than 240,000 times annually and is used by more than 1,800 schools and 3,000 programs around the world.