How difficult is the Spanish placement exam at UCLA?

<p>So I'm taking Spanish 2 right now and I really don't want to take Spanish 3. I was thinking of taking the placement exam in Spring and hopefully pass out of it.</p>

<p>In Spanish 1 and 2, I've learned most of the fundamentals including: present and past tense (and imperfect) grammar, lots of vocab (clothes, food, shopping, sports, weather, time, numbers, buildings, etc.), reflexive, and whatever I learned in Spanish 1 and 2.</p>

<p>I know the test is multiple choice as well. How likely do you think I'd do if I were to take the Spanish placement exam having have only taken 2 quarters of Spanish at UCLA? Would I really just place into Spanish 3? -____-;</p>

<p>Also, let's say for example I screw up really bad and I fail the exam and the exam places me in Spanish 1. Does that mean I have to retake Spanish 1 again? lol</p>

<p>I took three years of spanish 8th-10th grades till Honors Spanish 3 in high school. Took two years off and then studied a little right before my freshman year and I luckily passed in September. I hadn’t taken Spanish in two years so I was a little rusty. You could try studying a few more tenses because I think they had a few future tenses and such. Also the vocab on the test is pretty hard to predict.</p>

<p>It’s pretty hard, I thought. I took up to Spanish 3 in high school (until my junior year) and I took the test the beginning of my 2nd year here, so there was a considerable gap in time for me. I got placed into Spanish 4.</p>

<p>I studied some random vocab (this part worried me the most) and reviewed all my grammar, including my subjunctive. You can basically tell how far you place on the test by seeing how difficult the test gets as you go along. It stops after you make a certain number of mistakes, I think.</p>

<p>Why don’t you want to take Spanish here? Although I got placed into Spanish 4, I still took Spanish 2 and thought it was one of the most fun classes I’d taken. Maybe it depends on your TA.</p>

<p>I don’t want to take Spanish 3 because I thought it was going to be really difficult.</p>

<p>Spanish 1 was easy, but Spanish 2 is just insane. Only 5/28 people got A’s on the midterm and the average was a B-. Our TA is such a harsh grader, I’m just like “***?! This is Spanish 2!!!”</p>

<p>Are you allowed to retake the test if you don’t pass out of the language requirement? I was considering just taking it fairly cold to see if I could pass out, but if I didn’t, could I just retake it at some point after studying?</p>

<p>You can only take the test once at UCLA (at least for Spanish).</p>

<p>me gusta</p>

<p>10char</p>

<p>Yeah, you have one shot for the test. I recommend knowing up to your Spanish 3 grammar + a bunch of vocab if you want to place out of level 3. I was able to do it after 2 years without Spanish and I lazily studied for about 6 days before the test. You should also practice reading long passages in Spanish and answering questions based off of those. Doing that helped me.</p>

<p>I’m sorry about your bad Spanish 2 experience, but maybe you’ll get a good TA for Spanish 3 if you don’t place out. I’d hate Spanish too if the TA wasn’t any good.</p>

<p>You can take the Spanish 3 exam as many times you like as long as you turn in your testing slip with incorrect information. The score from the exam is self reported so you can mark up your score on whim. The entire Spanish Placement exam is very poorly monitored.</p>

<p>^^ can u explain in more detail how you can take the test multiple times…i need to do this lol…
what do u mean by incorrect information…</p>

<p>Can anyone go into detail on the specific contents of the exam? Also, if I place into Spanish 3, would I only need to take Spanish 3 to fulfill my foreign language requirement or would I need to take a year of foreign language?</p>

<p>I took it two years ago, so I don’t remember that much. But there is a little reading comprehension (1 long paragraph), vocabulary, and grammar (correct conjugation). I think they give you 4 answer choices to choose from.</p>

<p>You can start at any level of Spanish without taking the exam. All you need to do is pass Spanish 3 with a C or better or pass (starting from any level of Spanish) or pass into Spanish 4 or higher on the exam. The exam is just a guideline of what Spanish you are ready for, but you can start at a higher or lower level if you want.</p>

<p>The exam is different from how it was 2 years ago anyway.</p>