<p>Hey all - I just got my spanish SAT II scores back and got a 460. OUCH! :( Kind of makes me mad because all the practice tests I took were scoring me in the 550-650 range. Maybe it was a bad day for me or maybe I'm just more comfortable testing at home. I don't know. I've taken 7 years of Spanish but none since my sophomore year (now a freshly graduated senior!) so I'm very very rusty (rusty as in forgot everything haha). I don't really have the desire to take a language again at UVA because I've learned enough Spanish to not have to take it anymore. If only my incompetent school would have just told me to take the darn SAT II two years ago...</p>
<p>Anyways, now I'm really really nervous about UVA's placement test. I feel like I still sort of understand Spanish but I don't remember all the pesky rules and that's what got me on the SAT II. Is it cheating and thus a violation of the honor code I'm signing shortly to keep the conjugations/grammar rules close by while taking the test? Is there a penalty for taking longer to answer the questions? I feel like most people probably do use a "cheat sheet" but I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with the honor code. As lame as that sounds. Thanks for reading guys and I appreciate the help in advance!</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom would tell you to study the different conjugations a week before you take the practice exams. If you learned it properly you should breeze through it as you’ll begin to remember more once you refresh your memory. If you think you’re good enough to skip 4 years, you shouldn’t worry about studying much. </p>
<p>Worse case scenario: Taking a few semesters in Spanish and getting an easy A.</p>
<p>Since you already took the SAT II, I don’t think you have to take the placement test, but confirm to be sure (don’t take my word for it). Based on your score it looks like you’d be in the spanish 1060 at UVa (3rd course), so that wouldn’t take you very long to complete the requirement. Woosah posted this link last week:</p>
<p>I’m told you can use your best test result between the SAT II and the UVa online placement test, if you take both tests. Therefore if you took SAT II, there is no harm in taking the online placement test too, which is free. </p>
<p>Everyone should remember that for Spanish, the UVa placement test needs to be taken before you attend orientation. Print out the result and bring it with you to orientation.</p>
<p>Note Spanish 1060 is the 3rd course in the list at the link, but it is not the third course in the sequence. It takes the place of the 2nd course in the sequence of 4 classes, and is aimed towards someone with one or two years of high school Spanish. You don’t have to do well on the placement test to take 1060.</p>
<p>^^Thanks for correcting me on the 3rd course assumption. Thought I had it figured out, but evidently not. So is there a date then that the student would have to have the placement taken by, or is just “before orientation” adequate? Son hasn’t taken SAT II in spanish. thanks.</p>
<p>They can take it whenever they want as long as it is done before their orientation. This way the student knows which level to register for as well as some of the advisors assisting with registration have asked to see it. Here is something else to know, PRINT and KEEP the placement paperwork right after the student takes the placement exam. You cannot go back and retrieve it again, also the student HAS to show it to their instructor when school begins for that course level. Making a copy of it or printing off two copies after the exam may be a good idea. One to take to orientation and just in case it gets ‘misplaced’ you still have one they can take with them when school begins. Also, if they do not get into the course until Spring term you still have a copy. Instructors do not take a students word on this you must present the paperwork/results of the exam. </p>
<p>At orientation parents are given a blue holder with handles. I ended up using it as my ‘UVa file holder’. I made folders for dining, financial/tuition, placement exam, etc. It makes it easy for me to retrieve all things UVa. </p>
<p>To the OP: UVa takes the honor code very very seriously and in as much you want to do well on the exam please do not be tempted to ‘cheat’. The placement exam is done for a purpose that is to place you in the correct course level for you to succeed.</p>
<p>Yeah, I took 5 years of German but placed into the 201 class. I decided to take a different language instead, one I liked a LOT better. UVA language classes are much harder than high school equivalents. The SAT II may be placing you accurately.</p>
<p>As others have said, of course this is cheating! Plus, it’s not a great idea to get yourself into a language class that’s too advanced for you.</p>
<p>Buy an AP study guide and use it over the summer to review tenses, conjugations, irregular verbs, the subjunctive, common vocab, and so forth. I did, back in the day when we had to go to the language lab to take the test. I did fine on UVA’s test, even though my Spanish was entirely self-taught. I had been worried about the oral/aural part of the test, but it turned out there wasn’t one!</p>