All entering students who have some background in the Japanese language (Japanese), including heritage students who can speak the language yet with no or limited reading/writing skills, must take the Japanese Placement exam regardless of their intention to take Japanese courses here at St. Olaf.

International students: If you are coming from a country where English is not the primary language of high school instruction you do not need to complete a language placement. Please talk to the registrar for next steps.

The Placement Test is a 100-question multiple choice computer test. After filling in a short questionnaire of background information, you will move to the testing items, including vocabulary, Kanji (Chinese characters), grammar 1 (particles), grammar 2 (sentence structures and conjugation) and a short reading comprehension. There is only one correct answer for each question unless indicated. Answer as many questions as quickly as possible and return to more difficult questions after you have finished the exam. This is not an achievement test; you might not know or even have seen some of the characters/questions before. Just try your best. There is no penalty for incorrect answers, and you may go back and change your choice (before your final submission). Your score will be the total number of correct answers.

Based on your performance on this section, you may be prompted by the computer to respond to an additional section of reading comprehension (8 questions).

The deadline for new students taking the online Japanese placement test off-campus is the first week of June.

Students unable to access the placement exam online should contact the Registrar's Office (registrar@stolaf.edu). They will be able to work with the student and the language director to figure out how to get the information needed to properly place them. All students who complete the online placement test will receive their results and tentative placement during advising. Additional information about the Chinese Language Program can be found on the Asian Studies Department website, at stolaf.edu/japanese.

If you have any questions about the Japanese language program or the placement exam, please contact us by email at japanese-placement@stolaf.edu.