This study explores the validity of a battery of tests ofrnEnglish for academic purposes. A goal-oriented, skills- andrntask-based test of English is developed and validated as arnmeasure of the English language disposition of Freshmanrnstudents at Addis Ababa" University.rnThe test is based on analysis of the communicative languagernneeds of the students (Morris, 1982; Haile Michael, 1993): thernreceptive skills of reading and listening rank higher than thernproductive skills of writing and speaking.rnThe reliability of the test is quite satisfactory: therncoefficients are 0.94 (KR20) for the written test, 0.88 (KR20)rnfor the listening test and 0.73 (KR21) for the oral test.rnThe level of difficulty: and discrimination of the test isrnreasonable. The mean facility value of the written test isrn0.640 with mean discrimination index of 0.314; and the meanrnfacili ty value of the listening test is 0.612 with meanrndiscrimination index of 0.526. All the sections of the testsrnare properly contributing to the total tests. The averagernitem-test correlations of the sections range from 0.242 torn0.515 for both tests.rnThe validity of the test is also satisfactory. Evidence fromrnthe comments of students and language teachers suggests thatrnthe tests have good face and content validities.rnThere is evidence in support of the construct and concurrentrnvalidities of the tests. Both intercorrelations of sectionsrnand correlations between tests show a degree of commonrnvariance as well as some unshared variance; ie, with overlapsrnnot exceeding 44% for the former and 62% for the latter. Inrnother words, they are all testing English, but differentrnaspects or skills are also being tapped as well. The greatestrnagreement (r=O.81) is observed between the new written testrnand the criterion (written) test. In addition, there isrnevidence of a clear relationship between the test scores andrnthe University Semester Grade Point Average (SGPA): both thernwritten test and the test of listening correlate with SGPA atrnr=O.6.rnFinally, the study concludes with some observations on therntesting of English at this University based on these findings.