Exams for Graduate Students
ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS EXAMS
As an ESIA graduate student, you are required to take both a diagnostic exam to gauge your initial language proficiency and an exit exam (sometimes called a FLEX exam) to confirm that you have met the proficiency requirements for graduation.
When you enroll in the Elliott School, you are required to take a short diagnostic exam during your orientation. The exam determines how close you are to passing the exit exam and what sort of preparation you should make between the exams. There is no minimum profeciency requirement for the diagnostic exam. The diagnostic runs between 15-20 minutes. It consists of a brief oral proficiency interview and a short version of the foreign language reading exam, a sample of which is available in Russian. We will tell you immediately after the diagnostic what you need to do to prepare for a full-blown foreign language exit exam.
You must pass the exit exam during the last two semesters of your final year at GW. The exit exam consists of two parts:
- Reading Proficiency: A written exam, 90 minutes long, scheduled only once per semester
- Oral Proficiency: A short 10-15 minute interview with one of our Russian faculty, scheduled individually after completing the written portion of the exam
The Reading Proficiency Exam
The purpose of the Reading Proficiency Test is to determine whether you can read and understand standard Russian prose about international affairs without a dictionary. At no point are you required to demonstrate any skill other than the ability to understand what you read in the foreign language.
Elliott School graduate students taking a foreign language exit exam in Russian or another Slavic language must demonstrate enough proficiency to follow the gist of straightforward articles dealing with issues of general interest pertaining politics, history, current events, socio-economics, and military affairs. (This is the equivalent of the Intermediate High rating on the ACTFL scale.) On the current exam, you reach the Intermediate High rating by scoring 40%.
Elliott School Europe/Eurasia majors with a Slavic language are expected to understand both the main facts and some of the details from straightforward articles dealing with issues of general interest pertaining politics, history, current events, socio-economics, and military affairs (more than just the gist - ACTFL Advanced). On the current exam, you reach the Advanced rating by scoring 50%.
The exams consist of between ten and fifteen short passages in the foreign language taken from Russian newspapers and magazines. Each article is followed by a number of comprehension questions in English which require short answers in English (one sentence or less). The exam contains between forty and fifty questions.
You have ninety minutes to complete the exam. A fluent (but non-native) reader of Russian can complete the exam in about 35 minutes. You may not use a dictionary.
You can see a sample test in Russian if you have a Cyrillic font set on your computer.
The Oral Proficiency Exam
This consists of a 10-15 minute interview with one of our full-time Russian faculty. The tester will warm you up with a series of simple questions (such as where you live, work, etc.) and then move on to more substantive topics (such as coping with an everyday situation, describing current events, etc.). To reach the appropriate score, you must demonstrate the ability to narrate, describe, and explain concrete and factual topics in a cogent manner with an acceptable number of mistakes.
The best ways to do well on the oral proficiency exam are to: 1.) talk a lot, 2.) phrase you answers using only the vocabulary you know, 3.) focus more on speaking comfortably than stopping to ensure flawless grammar, 4.) engage the tester in conversation, and 5.) don't be afraid to ask for clarification or repitition of a question.
The Elliott School has different requirements for the exit exam depending on your program. European and Eurasian Studies majors are required to score Advanced on the reading proficiency exam and Intermediate High on the oral proficiency exam. All other majors are required to score Intermediate High on both the reading and oral exams.
COLUMBIAN COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES EXAMS
Some of the Columbian College M.A. and Ph.D. programs require graduate students to be proficient in a foreign language. These TOOL exams are now administered by the GW Language Center. For any questions concerning the TOOL exam, please contact the Language Center at (202) 994-6333.
