<p>I took the online placement exam for French and scored well enough to take the departmental exam. I'm sort of scared to take this exam, because I've only taken 3 years of French (all Honors, no AP), and I'm not sure if I will do well on it. So I just want to know if anyone has taken a language departmental exam and how difficult is it? Thanks</p>
<p>THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME. i am scheduled to take the dept. exam. took 3yrs of French in HS. most of the questions were easy to make educated guesses on, using what I already knew. The director of romance languages at Penn told me the dept. test is the same level of difficulty as the online one we took, which sort of relieved me, but I will probably not get as lucky with my educated guesses…</p>
<p>The way it is set up is that it’s relatively easy to place into the fourth semester of a language, but very difficult to completely place out of the requirement. If you do well on the written exam, you will still have to take an oral exam with a professor. So you have already qualified for French 140, and you can’t lose that standing (no matter how poorly you do on the written exam). So there’s no downside to taking the test; the worst that happens is that they tell you to take one semester of French at Penn. I took Spanish 140, second semester intermediate, and it was a lot of fun. Small, intimate setting, lots of personal attention from the prof, a bunch of cute girls in the class, and relatively easy exams. A great class to take as a first semester freshman.</p>