<p>What is the process for deciding the language a 4* will take? Do the students decide or the powers that be?</p>
<p>In basic they administer the DLAB which is basically a test to determine your potential to learn a language. If you do well on this you can pretty much take whatever language you want-- including the strategic languages (Arabic, Chinese, Russian etc.) If you dont do well, they will probably stick you in French, Spanish or Portuguese. You wil usually get at least your first or second choice, but ultimately it is up to the 'powers that be.'</p>
<p>yay for spanish 1!</p>
<p>i know alot of guys in my squad that took languages for 2 or 3 years in high school only to get put in like russian 101 or arabic or something.. but i got my top choice, so i dunno</p>
<p>Twin1's got his first choice, Twin2 got... nothing. He figured his score was so bad, the Academy figured he'd better concentrate on ENGLISH! haha Actually, he'll get his first choice too but the Powers opted to have him start in the spring term. Have no idea why.</p>
<p>same here, i dont have german til spring.. along with chemistry, physics, and all those other suicidal classes</p>
<p>Buckaroo is in Arabic and I wasn't sure if she chose that because as a lefty she won't get the side of her hand dirty or if she did well on the aptitude test and was placed there or she just went crazy and chose the hardest thing she could think of!</p>
<p>I realize they give you this placement test, but do they also give you a placement test for languages you've already taken? Like I went through spanish five through my sophmore year of HS. So I'm okay with speaking it, but like, now that a year and a half have passed, over two years if I get into the academy, I'm going to have forgotten the complicated things like the imperfect subjective (bleh, always hated that anyways). So, is there a way I could be put into spanish four instead of starting over, or getting thrown in a class that's way over my head?</p>
<p>yeah, they give you placement tests for languages you've already taken. german and spanish is usually online.. i dunno how many language classes you can validate though.</p>
<p>HNeedle, you lucked out! Twin2 has Chem, Phys II, Calc II or III (I can never remember which), some engineering class too, plus World Hist I think. Twin1's schedule is WAY easier.</p>
<p>it's been talked about before, but you don't validate languages, you're simply placed.</p>
<p>if you're a techy, you need 2 sems. if you're a fuzzy, you'll need 4. if you want to minor, you need 4 at or above the 200 level.</p>
<p>it's not like the math or science validation tests where you actually get credit for the classes...</p>
<p>ahh missmuff you're right. i was placed in german 222, but dont have validation credit for the 100s class.. my mistake!</p>
<p>As I understand it from my s, if you score well on the language aptitude test, you have a choice of the harder to learn languages. (russian, arabic, chinese)
Otherwise, you may choose an easier to learn language. I don't think you can "throw" the test as it is jibberish and hard to figure out what answer they are looking for.</p>
<p>I might add that Japanese is in the list of harder (or "strategic") languages. It is difficult to get into the Japanese program too.</p>
<p>I got placed into Arabic. I took the Spanish placement test, and have no idea how I did. Arabic isn't that bad, because none of us know it. It's pretty cool being left handed though, finally clean hands!</p>
<p>Do you have to have a background in Russian to take it? I've had 1 semester (in 7th Grade, lol)? I wouldn't really want to take Spanish (couldn't see me using it very much).</p>
<p>Not at all. The majority of our Russian students never had any exposure to it prior to the Academy.</p>
<p>My library has Rosseta Stone over the internet. I was messing around with it the other day and happened upon Russian. I'm hooked! Hopefully I can take it next year.</p>
<p>I'm taking Russian, I took German in HS, but Russian is way cooler, but definitely tough, I keep trying to read it as if it were english, which definitely doesn't work.</p>
<p>Was? Deutsch ist toll!</p>