Graduate Student Foreign Language Reading Examinations
The Graduate Student Foreign Language Reading Examinations are given four times a year. The University Registrar's web site lists the dates of the exams and the registration deadlines at http://registrar.uchicago.edu/courses/regschedule.shtml and gives a description of the registration procedure at http://registrar.uchicago.edu/policies/flre.shtml. If you wish to cancel your registration for a language examination, contact your area Dean of Students. The deadline for cancellation is Friday of the third week of the quarter.
A week before each exam the Office of Test Administration will send each student registered for a language exam an e-mail indicating the date, time, and location of the exam. Approximately four weeks after each exam the grades will be sent to the divisional and professional school Deans of Students from whom the grades are to be obtained. Students who include a self-addressed, stamped postcard with their exams will receive their grades by mail as soon as they are available.
One general examination is given in each language each quarter. The format of all language exams is the same. Each one is two hours in length for all students and consists entirely of passages to be translated accurately into idiomatic English with the use of a dictionary.
The total length of the passages for translation is about 750 words on the French and Spanish exams and about 450 words on the German exam. The passages on the French and German exams are drawn from several different fields on each exam, but avoid the specialized interests and technical language of any one discipline in particular.
The French, German, and Spanish exams are based on a perfect score of 100 points. The minimum score for a high Pass is 75 points, the minimum score for a Pass, 70 points; anything less than 70 points is a Fail.
Students should bring an adequate dictionary to the exam. Paperback dictionaries of pocket size are generally not satisfactory. Recommended are the Harrap's, Cassell's, and Larousse French-English, English-French dictionaries, the Collins, Cassell's, and Langenscheidt German-English, English-German dictionaries, and the Larousse and Williams Spanish-English, English-Spanish dictionaries.
The best preparation for the exam, in addition to a thorough command of the grammar and syntax, is to practice translating previous exams as well as journal articles and monographs in one's own discipline. It is always better to read several paragraphs or a page from a number of different sources than to work on one lengthy article or book. This will insure familiarity with a greater variety of styles of writing and sets of vocabulary.
PDF versions of previous exams are available at http://dos.uchicago.edu/languageexams/index.shtml Any questions concerning the Graduate Student Foreign Language Reading Examinations should be addressed to the Office of Test Administration at hsybrand@uchicago.edu or 773-702-2866.
