<p>Does anyone know the difficulty of the placement exam? There's a few threads on it from 2007 with a few people saying it was a joke, so I'm just wondering if that's still the case. I've been reviewing my grammar and conjugations just in case. any info would be great</p>
<p>p.s - wow talk about throwback. haven't been here since like 2008 I think. I used to post here a lot when I was in high school (ucla senior now :D)</p>
<p>I speak Spanish somewhat fluently and didn’t study before the exam, I passed the exam and was placed at the highest level. If I remember the exam correctly, I think the Spanish SAT language test was easier than UCLA’s exam. UCLA’s exam is also multiple choice and this makes it easier to pick an answer as you can usually choose the word that sounds most grammatically correct in a sentence.
The only challenged I faced with UCLA’s placement exam is understanding some words(1-3 words in the whole exam) that I personally never use in everyday conversation with family.</p>
<p>in high school, i took up to spanish II. If i take the spanish placement exam (i know i’ll fail it), is there a chance i can place out of beginning spanish at the college level?</p>
<p>Well that doesn’t help in terms of difficulty :P</p>
<p>What kinds of questions did they ask? Is it mostly vocab, grammar, or mix of both? My biggest challenge is remembering the different perfect tenses. I haven’t done any spanish related stuff since high school (3 years ago). Thanks for the info</p>
<p>They don’t ask questions like what tense is this.
The exam is mainly fill in the blank. They ask you what word best fills the sentence.</p>
<p>^ would you say I should just study vocab then? Thanks in advance</p>
<p>I don’t know what your vocab is like. Sorry for being unclear, and what I presume will be not much help. I don’t think anyone can give you an accurate picture of what the exam will be like. We all have different levels and skills in Spanish. As a (somewhat)native speaker, I personally didn’t understand like 2 words in the whole exam. I tend to understand less in reading literature or novels, which usually leads me to hit up the dictionary. My skills in knowing past tense, present tense, etc. in Spanish is better than my vocabulary. I didn’t have issue with knowing what tense best fits in a Spanish sentence or paragraph that was presented to tme. </p>
<p>If you would have taken AP Spanish, and had received an A, I would basically say that you should not have an issue placing at the highest on the exam. That’s all I really can say.</p>
<p>I took spanish in high school up to level 3 my sophomore year. I then took the spanish placement exam the fall of my freshman year and I passed. It was actually a pretty tough exam for me though. I reviewed my old spanish textbooks during the summer and it did help me a little since I used no spanish for over two years in between. It is hard to describe the exam because it tests vocab, reading comprehension (like a paragraph), and tenses that best fit the sentence. There were a ton of things I had no clue what they meant, especially for a lot of the vocab words. Good luck on it.</p>
<p>@theRADtomato47 You can start at any level of spanish you want without taking the placement exam. The placement exam only helps you “decide” which level to start at or lets you pass out. You need to pass that exam or take spanish 3 and get a C or better (you can start at 1, 2, or 3).</p>
<p>Ok so I just took the exam this morning. I’ll just leave this here for students might take the test.</p>
<p>1) If you’re taking it during the year and not at orientation, you’ll probably want to get there as early as you can. Since it’s first come first serve, there will probably be a long line. I had to wait ~30-40 mins to be able to take it, and i got there pretty much right on time.</p>
<p>2) Types of questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>fill in the blank: usually filling in the correct verb conjugation. Sometimes it’s completing the phrase that makes the most sense</p></li>
<li><p>translation: These are the easiest questions, but there were very few of these so don’t get your hopes up. A sentence is given to you in Spanish, and you pick the answer that has the correct translation. </p></li>
<li><p>synonym: a phrase is underlined, and you pick the word or phrase that has a similar meaning.</p></li>
<li><p>reading comprehension: I literally guessed on almost all of these questions. You read a paragraph, then pick the sentence that best summarizes the idea (I think. i couldnt comprehend the spanish lawl.)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>3) Preparation</p>
<p>I reviewed the conjugations and a bit of vocab a few days before the test to study for it. Definitely know your conjugations, like subjunctive, imperative, preterite, imperfect. If you took AP Spanish then I think you will be fine, since AFAIK AP spanish was all about reading comprehension. I tihnk the best way to study for the comprehension section (if you really want to pass out) is to just practice reading articles, since I dont think it’s practical to study vocab like you did for the SATs.</p>
<p>I heard in other threads that the cutoff to pass out is 400 but i’m not sure. For what it’s worth, I took up to spanish 3 in high school and didn’t take the placement test until now (last quarter of my senior year) and scored a 385. So the test isn’t too difficult, but it’s definitely a stretch if you want to test out of it</p>
<p>Just to go off of some info from FireEmblem. The spanish placement exam isn’t offered during orientation, so it looks like it is pretty packed all the time. So, maybe get there a little early to not wait. And the passing score is somewhere in the high 300s. I think I got around 390 and passed so FireEmblem, you should pass. They email scores to you a few days after the exam (even though they say it is a few weeks).</p>
<p>^ that would be great if i could pass out. would be a huge load off my shoulders for summer school. Thanks for the info</p>