Placement Exams

One of the General Education requirements at Lewis & Clark College for the Bachelor of Arts degree is three semesters of a single foreign language. If you have studied Chinese, Classical Greek, French, German, Japanese, Latin, Russian, or Spanish in high school or abroad, you are required to take a placement exam to help determine the right course for you to take.

You are not required to take the exam if you received an AP score of 4 or 5 or an IB score of 5, 6, or 7 on higher-level examinations. These scores meet the General Education requirement in foreign languages, and, therefore, you are not required to take a language. However, if you wish to continue study of this language, the Foreign Language faculty strongly encourage you to take the exam.

Placement exams in Chinese, Classical Greek, German, Japanese, Latin, and Russian are given once at the beginning of each academic year on campus during New Student Orientation (NSO) at the end of August. You are not required to register for this exam. The placement exams in Spanish and French are taken online during the summer.

Placement into the second semester of the second year of a language (202) or the first semester of third year (301) satisfies the Lewis & Clark Foreign Language requirement.

We strongly recommend that you start taking courses in a language during your first semester. This will provide you with maximum flexibility in scheduling your courses and overseas study during your four years at Lewis & Clark College.

All students are required to take the Foreign Language Placement exam UNLESS:

• You have fulfilled the Foreign Language requirement because of AP or IB examination scores,

• You have never studied a foreign language before,

• You have studied a language not offered at Lewis & Clark (e.g., Italian),

• You have studied a language at the college level and your credits have transferred to LC. In this case you may continue with the next course in the sequence you began elsewhere.

Students who wish to transfer credit in a foreign language from another college or university should NOT take the placement test.

Chinese, Classical Greek, French, German, Japanese, Latin, Spanish and Russian

Please fill out the Placement Examination Questionnaire in this packet or online at Placement Examination Questionnaire. If you are unable to submit the questionnaire electronically, fax it to 503/768-7434. All questionnaires must be returned between June 15 and August 17, 2009.

Placement exams for all languages except for French and Spanish (see below) will be given at 8 am on Thursday, August 27 in the Miller Building. When you arrive on campus, you will be informed of the exact locations.

Spanish and French

The Spanish and French placement exams are offered online only. For further information go to Spanish Placement or French Placement.

If you have any disability that may affect your performance on a computerized placement test, please send an e-mail requesting special accommodations to: access@lclark.edu with a copy to spt@lclark.edu (Spanish) and fpt@lclark.edu (French). You may be asked to submit documentation supporting your request.

The Spanish and French placement exams are valid for registration purposes for one year only. If you have questions, send an e-mail to: spt@lclark.edu or fpt@lclark.edu.

Special Circumstances

• If you have studied two of the languages taught at Lewis & Clark College and would like to continue to study both of them, take the placement exam in one of the languages. Then, talk to a professor in the Foreign Languages Department for individualized placement into the second language.