Chinese Language Placement Test.

As an international student, before you get put into your language classes, you have to be assessed. At Zheda, this assessment consists of an oral and written component.

After registration (which happens on an earlier day on the first level of the International College), you receive a sheet of paper with your name, student ID and test time & place.

Oral Test

For the oral test, you wait in a classroom with a few other students until your number is called. The test is a one-on-one conversation, depending on your skill level. My examiner asked me questions about my language background, Chinese studies and took out a book and asked whether I was able to understand it. The book she took out was from Year 4 and I struggled a lot. She ended up grading me to be in class 4, but it appears that there is no standard of measure between examiners. My friends (who have studied Chinese for much longer than me) were put in a lower "Grade" than me, when they are definitely much stronger speakers. In the end, the oral test doesn't matter too much as they take the scores from both your oral and written test to gauge what class you should start in.

Note: You cannot really prepare for the oral test, as it differs between examiners. Generally they are just simple questions asking you about your background, to get an understanding of your speaking level.

Written Test

There are at least two different papers for the written test. The difficulty level of your paper depends on how well you did in the oral test. Generally these papers are meant to challenge you, as they are generic test papers for people from what appears to be at level Year 1-3, or 4-7 (so there are a great variety of questions in terms of difficulty level.) You get only one hour to complete it.

I was given the harder paper and probably completed only 20% of it. The test paper starts off with simple translations from given Chinese characters to Pinyin, then Pinyin to Chinese characters. After that there are some "Fill in the blank" tasks. There are 5 sentences, and 5 phrases at the top which you have to fill in to match the sentence.

Following that are two comprehension tasks with True/False Questions. These passages were around 300-400 words long. The first passage I managed to understand, but the second one I could not even attempt it as the vocabulary was all new to me.

Then there are words that you have to use in sentences, and finally a long writing task. My question was "Write about an unforgettable place/person/moment." It had to be a minimum of 300 words.

The other paper's question was "Why do you want to study Chinese." 

There definitely isn't any pressure at all with these tests. They just tell you to try your best, and after a few days you'll find out what class is best for you to begin in. 

The desks in the testing room are all little cubicles with headphones and an electronic device drilled into the desk. You don't use this in the exam though.

A sneaky photo of the rows of desks in each classroom.

Results

At the end of the week, they post up the results in the common area of the International dorms. I ended up being placed in Class 3.6, which is an intermediate level. Books were 237RMB for my class, but for most classes they are around the same price.