M&P Exams
Spanish Mastery & Proficiency Exams
The Mastery & Proficiency Exams in Spanish are offered twice per semester through the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. The exams are available to graduate students who are required to demonstrate a foreign language proficiency or mastery for their degree. The precise dates of the exams are set early in the semester, though they are generally offered in October, November, February and March.
Fall 2009 Dates
- Tuesday, October 13, 2009
- Wednesday, November 11, 2009
M&P EXAM REGISTRATION
On the day of the exam, please report to the department office in Wilson Hall Room 115 between 10 am and 12 pm to pick up the exam materials. Students are on their honor to complete the exam within the specified time limit. The department does not provide examples or practice exams. The exam fee is $17 per exam and must be paid when the exam is picked up. Please present a check or money order made payable to the University of Virginia. All materials, including the exam handouts, must be returned on the day of the exam – no later than 4 pm.
Proficiency Exam in Spanish
The Proficiency Exam in Spanish consists of a translation from Spanish to English on a topic in the general area of study of the candidate. The student is allowed 90 minutes for the exam. The passage given is normally longer than the student will be able to translate in 90 minutes, and thus a complete translation is of the text is not expected. What is expected for a grade of “Pass” is an accurate translation of a good portion of the text. Through the translation the student must demonstrate an understanding of the structure of the language, such that an accurate sentence-by-sentence rendering is expected. Simply summarizing the gist of the passage will not suffice.
The candidate is allowed to consult a dictionary, as well as verb charts (and even works such as 501 Spanish Verbs, etc.), but no textbooks or other books of Spanish grammar.
Mastery Exam in Spanish
The Mastery Exam in Spanish consists of three parts: (1) a translation, (2) a reading, and (3) an essay of approximately 300 words. The candidate is allowed two hours to complete all three parts, and it is suggested that 40 minutes be devoted to each. Expectations for the translation are the same as those for the Proficiency Exam in Spanish (described above). Also, while the quality of the translation is most important, a greater quantity of translation than that of the Proficiency Exam is expected. For part two, the student is expected to read an article in the general area of his or her field of study and answer several questions in Spanish about the article. For part three, the student is asked to write an essay about his or her particular interest within the field of study (e.g., what the student might be planning to investigate for the Ph.D. thesis, etc.). The student must demonstrate mastery of the language in part three of the exam by writing an essay that is virtually free of grammatical errors. Basic errors of grammatical agreement, misuse of the lexicon, etc., will result in a grade of “Fail”.
Should the student provide a good translation and accurate answers to the reading, but fail to write an essay that demonstrates mastery of the language, the student may retake part three (the essay) without having to retake parts one and two.
Please note that the exams are graded promptly and sent to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for processing. Once this has been completed, your department secretary will be notified of the results. This department will not report exam results.
If you have any questions, please contact us at sipexams@virginia.edu .