How long is the uva spanish placement exam

The test is multiple-choice and covers grammar, reading, and vocabulary. It is an adaptive test, which means that the question difficulty will vary depending on how you respond.

Do not get discouraged if you are unfamiliar with some of the material. Make your best guess and go on to the next question. You should only take the test once and do your best. You should NOT use books, notes or any other materials or resources. The test will take 20 — 25 minutes. Remember, these are placement tests. You should do the best you can following the test guidelines. Tell students stories in Spanish and work with audio and video recordings, thereby including regular and diverse listening activities in classroom instruction.

Above all, conduct your class in Spanish as much as possible. Create reading and listening exercises that look beyond factual information to general understanding, analysis, synthesis and basic interpretation. Encourage expansive vocabulary building through independent assignments as well as course work.

Maintain some focused study of grammar, but do not let it take up so much time that functional language use in reading, listening, writing and speaking is neglected. You may have to teach less grammar, but concentrate on helping students to master it well.

Do not let the placement test, or any other test, overshadow what you know to be good, sound teaching for your students. A good test will measure knowledge and skills no matter how they are attained.

As already stated, the best preparation is solid work in as many Spanish courses as possible continuing through senior year. Since the Spanish Placement Test is of a global nature, specific preparation beyond course work is not required. For those interested, however, here are some suggestions to help students expand their Spanish study beyond the classroom and to maintain their language skills over the summer. Read Spanish newspapers, periodicals, and short stories of your choice for enjoyment, for general meaning, and to expand your vocabulary.

Listen to audio and videotape materials, guessing at general meaning and recalling as many specific details as possible. Consider the expressed attitude of all speakers, why they say what they do, and the consequences of their remarks.

Review your mistakes on grammar and vocabulary worksheets and tests from your past Spanish classes, consulting your textbooks to clarify points you do not understand. As for taking the test itself, be sure you are well-rested the night before and try to remain as relaxed as possible during the test. We intend that the experience be an enjoyable, yet challenging one for you. Remember that all students are not expected to answer all items correctly. Intelligent guessing will most likely help you achieve a higher score.

The Spanish Placement Test will continually be reviewed and analyzed to be sure the material is current and meaningfully related to the curricula in the introductory Spanish courses around the UW System. We will also be continually adding new questions to a growing bank of questions now being written. In addition, we will be trying to develop new and different kinds of question formats so the test remains current with the best practices in language testing and also retains its usefulness for placing students into our courses.

As an example, because the field is increasingly emphasizing communicative skills, we have recently added a new item type that attempts to measure some of the skills necessary to effectively communicate in Spanish. Data on how each question functions under actual testing conditions has been and will continue to be used to replace items that are no longer functioning well. Although we subscribe to the philosophy that listening, writing and speaking are essential components to Spanish proficiency, it is unlikely that they will become integral parts of the Spanish Placement Test because the cost in time and money for administering and scoring such sections would be exorbitant.

Also, because these components are taught and assessed in such dramatically different ways at both the high school and post-secondary levels, our research has found that listening, speaking, and writing tests do not help improve college placement. However, because these skills are vital to success in the language, UW instructors in the introductory Spanish sequence routinely assess their students with respect to the full compliment of skills during the first week of classes, and advise their students to move up or down a course, as appropriate.

Spanish Placement Test Since , UW system faculty and Wisconsin high school teachers have been collaborating to develop a test for placing incoming students into college Spanish courses. Follow this link for a Spanish Practice Placement Test Purposes and Background of the Test Placement into college courses is the sole purpose of this test. General Characteristics of the Test 1. Adverbs c Comparisons The Spanish Placement Test is also constructed according to the following criteria: 1.

Sample Language Usage Items Select the correct choice to fill the blank space in the sentence: 1. Esto 8. The correct answers are: 1 b, 2 d, 3 b, 4 a, 5 c, 6 a, 7 c, 8 c, 9 d Sample Communication Items Select the choice that logically completes the dialogue.

The correct answers are: 1 b, 2 a, 3 c The Reading Section An important consideration in the development of this section is comprehension of the sense of the text beyond a mere knowledge of Spanish. The following passage and accompanying questions are typical of the Spanish Reading Section. Esta lectura habla a. How Teachers Can Help Students Prepare for the Test and for Continued Study at the University Level We do not advise that teachers offer special sessions, materials or practice to prepare students specifically for the placement test.

Advising Students on Preparing for the Test As already stated, the best preparation is solid work in as many Spanish courses as possible continuing through senior year. Future Directions of the Test The Spanish Placement Test will continually be reviewed and analyzed to be sure the material is current and meaningfully related to the curricula in the introductory Spanish courses around the UW System.

Return to Homepage. Quick and convenient, our online Spanish placement test can be taken anytime, anywhere. In only 15 minutes or less, the student will receive individual section scores and a recommended placement level.

You can rest easy knowing that our language assessment test has been validated by top universities. Before we began working on our new online Spanish placement test, we established a clear objective to develop a test which would evaluate students quickly, easily, and, most importantly, accurately.

Our test goes beyond other Spanish placement tests by measuring knowledge of written Spanish, spoken Spanish, Spanish reading comprehension, and Spanish grammar. The first step in developing a new Spanish placement test was determining what kind of new test was needed to ensure that students would be assigned at the appropriate level.

A series of meetings between our Testing Committee and the university faculty identified areas where the previous placement tests did not accurately reflect the student's abilities. The next step was to create a test panel of university faculty. Members of the test panel were chosen based upon their experience in teaching Spanish.

Once a test panel was formed the first task was to formulate the overall specifications for each level of Spanish fluency. This task required the panel members to determine what students absolutely need to know. The first question of the test is selected randomly, the computer selects the following question based upon the correctness of the answer given to the previous question.

CAT selects questions with the objective of maximizing the precision of the exam based on what is known about the student from previous responses. From the student's perspective, the difficulty of the exam is perfectly tailored to their level of ability. For example, if a student responds correctly to a question of intermediate difficulty, they will then be presented with a more difficult question.

Or, if they responded incorrectly, they would be presented with a simpler question. When compared to typical static multiple choice tests, with a fixed set of items administered to all students, computer-adaptive tests require fewer questions to arrive at equally accurate scores.

It is difficult to overstate the advantages of adaptive testing.