Proficiency and Mastery Exams
The Proficiency and Mastery 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 2008 Dates
September 23, 2008
November 7, 2008
M&P EXAM REGISTRATION
Students wishing to take one of these exams must send an email to sipexams@virginia.edu no later than one week prior to the exam date. The following information must be included in the registration email:
- Student name
- The last four digits of student ID (ss#)
- Department
- Exam & Date (i.e., Spanish Mastery Exam 09/23/2008 or Italian Proficiency Exam 11/07/2008)
The exam can be picked up on exam date between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. in Wilson Hall, room 115 and must be returned to the department office by 4 pm that day. 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. A check or money order made payable to the University of Virginia is accepted. All materials including the exam handout must be returned on the day 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.
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