Listening
Format: Timed - 50 minutes. Delivered on computer. Audio clips with pictures. Multiple choice questions.
Student should be able to control basic personal background and needs, social conversations, and somewhat more complex tasks, such as lodging, transportation, shopping, and directions. Listening tasks include not only spontaneous face-to-face conversation but also short routine telephone conversation and some deliberate speech, such as simple announcements at a train station.
Reading
Format: Timed - 55 minutes. Delivered on computer. Diverse reading material. Multiple choice questions.
Note: About half of the texts are in simplified Chinese characters, and the other half are in traditional Chinese characters. Students should be able to read both forms of Chinese characters.
Student should be able to understand the main idea and/or some facts from simple connected texts dealing with basic personal and social needs. Examples include messages with social purposes or information for the widest possible audience, such as public announcements, a list of phone numbers, characteristics of certain people, simple conversations, notes, explanation of idioms, and brief introduction of a historic event.
Writing
Format: Timed - 50 minutes. Typed responses on computer, either in simplified or traditional Chinese characters.
Student should be able to control limited practical writing needs. Topics are simple, such as likes and dislikes, short descriptions of one’s own experience, recounting of everyday events in a list-like manner, and short notes.
Student should be able to write short messages, postcards, and take down simple notes such as telephone messages. Create statements or questions.
Speaking
Format: 10-minute Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) with role-play. In-person interview.
Student should be able to control topics such as personal history, daily schedule, leisure-time activities, and simple transactions, such as at a department store and a stationery store. Students should be able to complete tasks in simulated situations.
Student should be able to ask and answer questions regarding the above topics, initiate and respond to the above topics and maintain the conversation, demonstrate grammatical accuracy in basic constructions and use of high-frequency verbs and auxiliary verbs (e.g. 了，着，过.)