The Oxford Online Placement Test
The Oxford Online Placement Test can be used
as a quick measure of a student's general language ability.
What
does it test?
It tests grammar, vocabulary and listening
skill; it also tests how learners use that knowledge in order to understand the
meaning in communication.
How
long does it take?
The test lasts about 45 minutes.
Sections
The test has two sections: Use of English and Listening.
- Use of English
This section tests grammar, vocabulary and
meaning in a conversation of around 30
questions in American or British English.
Note: The exact number of questions a student has to answer depends on
his/her performance during the test. The more inconsistent the student is, the
longer the test will take to judge his/her English level.
Important
There is a time limit. When students have
only 15 minutes left, they will see a message. If they leave a space blank they
will see a warning message. Students cannot go back to questions they skipped.
There are three types of questions:
- Questions
that test the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.
Tips:
●
Try to recognize the grammar or
vocabulary that is tested.
●
Read the whole conversation. Focus
on the words after the gap.
- Questions
that test phrasal verbs, idioms, irony and sarcasm.
To be able to answer this question, you need
to know the two phrasal verbs ‘talk someone round’ and ‘put someone off’.
Perhaps you don’t understand what ‘talk someone round’ means, but it is
possible to figure out that something didn’t work and she is explaining the
reason.
- Cloze test.
It tests the reading comprehension and knowledge of grammar and vocabulary
Tips:
●
Read the whole text first
●
Read sentence by sentence. Pay
attention to the words after the gap. Some students just read the sentence up
to the gap then type in a word that makes sense. Then they jump to the next
sentence with a space. This is a big mistake. When you have finished this
question, the first section is over.
Example:
Grammar
areas that OPT assesses:
1. All the past tenses
2. All the present tenses
3. All the future tenses
4. Passives
5. Modal verbs
6. Conditionals (if-clauses)
7. Relative clauses
8. Countable and uncountable nouns
9. Article and determiners
10. Adverbs and adjectives
11. Comparatives
12. Prepositions
13. Indirect questions
14. Reported speech
15. Gerunds and infinitives
16. Subject-verb agreement
17. Confusing words and false friends
18. Expressing opinions
2. Listening understanding (15 questions)
This section tests what the student
understands, but also the meaning. In this section, a mixed of accents
(American and British) can be chosen. Students
can play the audio twice.
There
are two kinds of questions:
1. Only one question per recording and
2. Two questions per recording.
Tips:
- Listen for
meaning, not word by word. Don’t assume that if you hear the same word(s)
in the recording as you have read in the answers that this is the correct
choice. In most cases, but not all, the correct answer will not use any of
the words in the recording.
- Think of
synonyms for the words.
- Some of the
answers are not direct.
Example:
A man and a woman are shopping for a new
kitchen.
Man:
What about this kitchen? It has everything we need.
Woman:
Our curtains are green.
What is the woman trying to say? It’s not so
easy to tell. What do you think?
Answer: She is rejecting this kitchen as a
good choice because of the color. Obviously, the color of the kitchen does not
match the green color of the curtains they already have.
Resources:
Simulacro Prueba OOPT en Moodle: https://idiomas.medellin.unal.edu.co/moodle/mod/quiz/view.php?id=15704
Guide to the OOPT:
In Spanish:
Free samples:
Level test:
Adapted
by: Alejandra Jiménez and Deisa Gómez. March, 2019
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