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All graduate students are required to pass one or more language exams before proceeding to the Oral Examination. Consult the Graduate Student Handbook for field-specific requirements. Sample examinations in the following languages will be posted here shortly:
Rules and Procedures
The goal of the examinations is to assure the department that a graduate student has a basic grasp of the language in question, and is able to make a clear, coherent translation. In view of the fact that it is knowledge of the language tested that is to be demonstrated, students for whom English is not their first language may petition to translate into their native languages; such petition is to be reviewed by the faculty Language Chair, and to be accepted if there is a faculty member willing and able to grade the resulting exam.
The exam lasts two hours, and use of a dictionary is permitted. Passages set for language exams should be about 300 words in length. First-year students in fields requiring more than one language must take an exam in at least one of their required languages at the beginning of September. In the event of failure, registration for a language course is highly recommended.
Exams will be set three times for each academic year — during pre-registration week and on one of the reading days after the end of the semester (i.e., in September, January, and late March/early April.) No other language exams will be given, except on an emergency basis if a student is able to demonstrate in a petition to the Language Chair that they were unable, through no fault of their own, to take a language exam at one of the set times, and would suffergenuine hardship by having to wait for the next available set exam.
It is the responsibility of individual graduate students to acquaint themselves with their language requirements and the departmental exam policy, and to arrange to take their language exams in good time so as to meet all requirements in due order.
Exams, in all cases, are anonymously assigned for grading. It is the responsibility of faculty members grading the exams to do so within two weeks of receipt of the exams. Most will identify themselves on the graded exams (e.g., by placing their initials on the cover), and will make themselves available to students who fail, in order to discuss what they did wrong and advise as to what steps need to be taken before retaking the exam. An exam that is failed is sent to a second reader to be checked; if the second reader decides to pass the exam, that judgment will prevail. Students should be notified of the exam results as soon as all of the grading for exams in their particular language is completed.
Students should be aware that the perceived difficulty or ease of exams is bound to be highly variable depending on individual students’ levels of preparation and familiarity with the work or context from which a given passage is drawn; and that grading is also bound to be a somewhat variable factor depending on the particular faculty member(s) to whom exams are assigned and their understanding of the requirement for a “clear and coherent” translation. The requirement that a second faculty member review a field exam is aimed precisely at reducing such variation.
It does not seem advisable to replace the exam merely by course work: the aim of the exam is precisely to test whether students have really learned from the language course they have taken. But the faculty wish to make clear that the language exam sets only a low bar: students should not take passage of the exam as suggesting that they have a high level of language competency even in reading, and should know that professional activities in the future may involve not only reading but also speaking and writing in foreign languages. Knowledge of foreign languages is of increasing importance in an era of globalization.
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