The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2022 - 40

CERTIFICATION FORUM David Stephenson, Larry Bogoslaw, and Holly Mikkelson
Other challenges are at the
word level. For example,
a given language may
have many " false friends "
(i.e., words in a foreign
language bearing a deceptive
resemblance to words in
one's own language), or
perhaps terms that can be
translated in different ways
depending on context. In
selecting and developing
passages, graders look
for texts that feature the
challenges identified in
the LSGs.
Rites of Passage: Selecting
and Preparing Source Texts
for the Certification Exam
A
sk an ATA
certification exam
grader to name the
most difficult thing about the
job, and chances are they'll
reply, " passage selection. "
You might wonder what's
so hard about this task. If
a group of graders needs
a new passage, don't they
just find a random article in
an online newspaper, copy
and paste a few paragraphs
onto a blank page, and add
it to the exam packet? Well,
there's a bit more to it than
that. The following will walk
you through the multi-stage
process of selecting, vetting,
submitting, and approving
an exam passage.
Passage Bank and
Language-Specific
Guidelines
The Certification Program's
policy is that each grader
workgroup (the set of
graders responsible for
a given language pair
to or from English-
e.g., Arabic>English,
English>Arabic, etc.) must
maintain a bank of six
passages per exam year. This
bank consists of three active
passages that are presented
to candidates (who select
two of the three to translate)
and three backup passages
that come into play if any of
the active ones are spoiled
40 The ATA Chronicle | September/October 2022
due to a breach of passage
security or another cause.
After a certain time, active
passages are retired and any
unused backup passages are
put into use. Retired passages
may then be repurposed as
practice tests.
Each grader workgroup
is also required to develop
language-specific guidelines
(LSGs), consisting of
common challenges for
translators in their language
pair and direction. For
example, an LSG could
state that a source language
tends to have long, complex
sentences that need to be
split into two or more shorter
sentences in translation.
Selection Criteria
The first step in selecting
a passage is to find a text
in the source language that
meets explicit criteria for
passage suitability. Here are
some key guidelines that
all graders abide by when
selecting passages:
Length: Source texts in
English must be between
225 and 275 words. The
length of source texts in
other languages is judged
by the average length of a
translation into English.
Content: The subject matter
should be readily familiar
to an educated layperson.
Topics that are controversial
or potentially upsetting to a
candidate are avoided.
Lexicon: The vocabulary
should be nontechnical
(i.e., require no particular
knowledge of a specialized
field). Thus, any specific
terminology should be
commonly known or readily
accessible in a good
general dictionary.
www.atanet.org
http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2022
