The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2021 - 38

CERTIFICATION FORUM

By Michèle Hansen

The What and Why of
Certification Exam Conditions
As we move toward an online version of ATA's certification exam, some
long-standing exam conditions will be changing-things like bringing
your own dictionaries and laptop to the exam sitting. Others, however,
will remain the same. Here's a review of the latter, with an explanation
of why they're applied to our testing program.
Three-Hour Time Limit:
Most translators work under
deadlines. Exam passages
are approximately 250 words
each, and candidates are
required to complete two
of them. This works out to
fewer than 175 words/hour,
which should be adequate
for practicing translators to
produce a good text, including
time to proofread their work.
No-Return Exam:
Certification exam passages
take many hours to prepare
in order to maintain a
consistent level of difficulty
from year to year and parity
between the various language
pairs tested. To preserve the
integrity of these carefully
vetted texts, we need to keep
them confidential. Exams are
therefore not returned and
source text passages may
not be copied or saved
by candidates.
Open-Book but with
Website Restrictions: Access
to resources is generous
but not unlimited to ensure
the work submitted is the
translator's own. (See the
link in the sidebar for more
information on what's
permitted and what's not.)
If you're wondering if a
favorite online resource
is permissible, the rule of
thumb is to check if it has

38

a forum to ask questions or
allows chatting. If the answer
to either is " yes, " it may not
be used during the exam.
No Spelling or Grammar
Checkers: Many candidates
are surprised to learn
that these common
word processing tools
are not allowed. Spelling
and grammar skills are
fundamental to proper
language use, and professional
translators should be wellversed in how to apply them.
Candidates are encouraged
to check spelling or points of
grammar in online resources.
No Machine Translation
or Other Automated
Tools: There's no question
that machine translation
is increasingly part of
translators' professional
lives. The view of the
Certification Program is
that we need to know how
to translate a text ourselves
first in order to properly
use or assess a computergenerated version. Our
exam is designed to test
a candidate's own ability
to employ translation
techniques and transfer
meaning without assistance
from MT.

is candidate anonymity.
Graders never know who
produced the texts they
receive. Please be sure to
follow the instructions
about using this code, and
not your name, on your
exam materials.
Continuing Education
Points (CEPs) PostCertification: A hallmark of
most certifications across
a variety of sectors is that
they are not " one and
done. " Practitioners must
continue to demonstrate
that they're using their
skills and maintaining

their knowledge of their
field. ATA requires 20
CEPs every three years,
and offers CEP credit for a
variety of activities. Specific
information on these
categories and point values
can be found on our website.
The Certification Program
frequently hears that the
exam conditions don't mirror
real-life working conditions,
which is true. Other translator
and interpreter organizations,
such as the United Kingdom's
Institute of Translation and
Interpreting, take a different
approach in their credentialing
process. Our position is that
exams by their very nature are
not examples of actual work
conditions, and that we need
to control the testing setting
to maximize the validity of
our methodology. We'll
continue to assess our
system as we move into
online testing but are
confident that our exam
conditions are appropriate
for evaluating the skills
we measure.

MORE ABOUT ATA'S CERTIFICATION EXAM
ATA Certification Main Website | www.atanet.org/certification
ATA Certification Handbook | http://bit.ly/certification-handbook.
ATA Computerized Exam Online Resource List: What's Permitted and
What's Not | http://bit.ly/ATA-exam-resources
ATA Continuing Education Requirements | http://bit.ly/ATA-points
Karl, Ben. " 12 Extra-Linguistic Skills You Need to Master before Taking
ATA's Certification Exam, " The ATA Chronicle (January/February 2020),
38, http://bit.ly/extra-linguistic.

Michèle Hansen, CT is chair of ATA's
Certification Committee. An ATA-certified
French>English translator and editor since 1990,
she specializes in the health-related international
development, medical, and pharmaceutical
sectors. She previously served as administrator of ATA's French
Language Division. michele@globalhealthlanguage.com

Use of a Code Number
rather than Your Name:
A key feature of our program

The ATA Chronicle | May/June 2021

www.atanet.org
http://www.atanet.org/certification http://www.bit.ly/certification-handbook http://www.bit.ly/ATA-exam-resources http://www.bit.ly/ATA-points http://www.bit.ly/extra-linguistic http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2021

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