Spanish Placement Examination
[If you are a Barnard student please go to: http://www.barnard.edu/spanish/placement.html]
Entering Columbia students are placed in Spanish courses or exempted from the language requirement on the basis of their College Board Achievement or Advanced Placement scores. All other students with prior knowledge of Spanish (secondary school, living abroad, near-native or native speakers) who want to continue studying Spanish are required to take the department's Placement Examination before registering for a course.
The Placement Examination in Spanish is an online, multiple-choice format exam that you may take at your convenience (see link below). It consists of questions on vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension. There is no oral or listening part to the exam. Since it is an adaptive test, the length varies from one test taker to another, with an average time of 20 minutes.
At the exam welcome screen you must provide all the information requested. Your score and placement recommendation will be given to you immediately upon completion of the exam. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese will also be notified. We recommend that you print the page with your result as well.
You may proceed to register in the course in which you were placed. Under no circumstances may you register for a level lower or higher than the one to which you are assigned without the explicit permission of the Director of the Language Programs. The online placement test is for diagnostic purposes only and will be supplemented by your instructor's evaluation during the first week of classes, at which time he or she may recommend a change.
If your score in the online test qualifies you for exemption from the language requirement at Columbia, you will be required to take a written version of the placement examination during Orientation (for entering students) or during the semester (for continuing students). This written exam will be offered every year on the Thursday before the beginning of classes in the fall semester from 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m. in Room 352 of the International Affairs Building (the Language Resource Center Computer Lab). You do not need to make an appointment to sit for this exam.
You may take the online Spanish Placement Examination only once. Should you have any questions about your placement, please contact the Director of the Language Programs. The exam must represent your own work. When taking it you will be bound by Columbia University's Code of Academic Integrity, and must refrain from any activity constitutive of academic dishonesty as defined therein. If you are a Barnard student do not proceed any further and go to: http://www.barnard.edu/spanish/placement.html.
To take the Columbia placement exam please go to:
http://webcape.byuhtrsc.org/?acct=columbia
password: roaree1 [ends with the number one]