Proficiency and placement exams in Korean are offered for registered students at UW. Students with no previous exposure to the Korean language are able to register for KOREAN 101 via MyPlan or MyUW at any time. For full information, please see this page.

The Asian Languages & Literature department does not offer proficiency exams to those outside UW (e.g., high-school students seeking admission, prospective students, extension students, etc.); neither does it offer testing in languages not currently offered in its curriculum. For full information, please see this page.

No. While the UW recognizes IB coursework in Korean as a challenging academic program that provides excellent preparation for university study, credit awarded does not equate to automatic course placement. In most cases, credits are awarded for IBsubjects in which the student has earned a grade of 4 or higher. Consult the table below for specific information about credit awards in particular subjects. The table below shows the UW’s departmental policies for awarding course equivalencies and credits for each exam.

Areas of Inquiry

•     SSci = Social Sciences

      NatSci = Natural Sciences

      A&H = Arts and Humanities

   

  Basic Skills Credits

   

      C = Composition

      RSN = Reasoning

      FL = Foreign (World) Language

Higher Level

Standard Level

Students interested in taking classes in Korean at the University of Washington who have never taken Korean before can register directly for KOREAN 101 using MyUW or MyPlan. Students who have an existing background in Korean (either through high-school level study, college-level study, self-study or heritage speaker experience) should proceed by taking the relevant placement survey:

• Take this survey if you think you are at or around a first-year-level.
• Take this survey if you think you are at or around a second-year-level.
• Take this survey if you think you are at or around a third-year-level.

If you have questions about placement, if you're not sure of what level you might be, or if you want to major or minor in Korean, contact the following Professors:

100 Level (K101, 102, 103): EunYoung Won

200 Level (K201, 202, 203): JungHee Kim

300 Level (K301, 302, 303): JungHee Kim

400 Level (K415, 416, 417): Heekyoung Cho

If students feel that their placement is inappropriate or have concerns about a particular placement, they should make an appointment with the instructor in charge of the course. If students are already taking a course and discover that their placement is not a good fit, they should talk with their instructor within the first two weeks of the course for assistance.

Students with an existing background in Korean who are not planning on taking classes in Korean at UW and want to have the one-year world language proficiency requirement of the College of Arts & Sciences marked as cleared must take the Korean Proficiency Examthrough the AVANT platform.

Students can learn more and register for the test here. When registering for the AVANT proficiency test in Korean, students should use their UW.edu email address and be sure to include their student ID number to facilitate timely reporting of results to the registrar’s office.

There are no associated costs with placement assessments in Korean at UW Seattle. Proficiency testing is separate from placement testing and uses an online testing platform called AVANT that has a testing fee. For full information on testing and fees for Korean, please see this page. Unfortunately, there are no exam fee waivers for financial hardship available at this point in time.

The proficiency exam for Korean is offered online by AVANT,  and covers all four primary language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Questions are based on real-world, everyday situations. AVANT measures a test taker’s language ability according to Benchmark Levels that are based on ACTFL national standards. Test results will indicate the level of proficiency achieved for each section of the test.

Once students have registered and paid for their chosen proficiency test, AVANT will send further instructions regarding proctoring and students can then schedule the date and time for their test. Students are responsible for ensuring their systems are compatible with the AVANT exam and proctoring systems. If you have any questions on testing administration, or need technical assistance with proctoring, please contact Avant Assessment Support at support@avantassessment.com. 

Please note: the AVANT proctoring system is not currently compatible with Chromebooks. Access to computer workstations is available through the UW Library system when campus is open, and students can also borrow laptops for home use through the UW Student Technology loan service.

For proficiency tests conducted through AVANT, yes. Sample tests are available here, a user guide is available here, and students can find a technology guide for remote testing here. For further details on placement testing, students should contact the faculty member associated with the level they are planning to test in.

For further details on placement testing, students should contact the faculty member associated with the level they are planning to test in.

For proficiency exam results, students shoul contact the UW Language Learning Center (LLC) via email.

Students can take the AVANT placement/ proficiency test at any time during the year. There is currently no limit to the number of times a student can take placement or proficiency tests in Korean. We recommend students try to give themselves at least 4 weeks between tests to allow sufficient time to study in a way that will see scores improve in a meaningful way.

It is important to note that the Department of Asian Languages & Literature has internal deadlines for reporting scores to the registrar’s office. If students take their test after a deadline for a given quarter, scores will be reported the following quarter. For full information, see this page.

Unfortunately, the department is not able to provide breakdowns of proficiency test scores for exams taken through AVANT for students. Test results are valid for one year.

No. These exams are purely to either place students into the correct class or to fulfil graduation requirements for language proficiency. First-year (elementary) or second-year (intermediate) foreign-language credit is not granted either by examination or by course completion in a student’s native language. “Native language” is defined as the language, or one of the languages, spoken in the student’s home during the first six years of their life and in which they received instruction through the seventh grade.

Students who misrepresent the extent of their background so as to gain entrance to a course at the elementary or intermediate level may be dropped from the rolls of that course.