ALTA Competency Exam (CALT) study guide
ALTA Competency Exam (CALT) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The ALTA Competency Exam (CALT) is a translation-competency credential awarded by ALTA Language Services. It is intended for working translators, bilingual professionals moving into translation, and candidates who need an independent, third-party assessment of their ability to carry meaning accurately from a source language into a target language - as distinct from a general language-proficiency test. The ALTA Competency Exam (CALT) study guide has 6 sections and about 1,969 words.
01Source-Language Comprehension and Text Analysis
Comprehension begins above the sentence. Before translating anything, identify the text's function (informative, expressive, operative), genre (contract, press release, clinical report), audience , register , and communicative purpose .
321 words, about 2 min02Meaning Transfer: Accuracy and Completeness
Meaning transfer requires carrying propositional content , illocutionary force (is it a promise, a warning, a permission?), modality and hedging , evaluative stance , and cohesive links . A target sentence that preserves every noun but loses the hedging has failed, even if a bilingual reader could match it back word for word.
324 words, about 2 min03Target-Language Writing and Style
Target-language writing is judged by how the text reads as a target text . Candidates must control information structure (given before new, theme before rheme), sentence length and subordination habits , voice and agency , nominal versus verbal style , and the cohesive devices native writers actually use.
311 words, about 2 min04Terminology, Register, and Cultural Appropriateness
Term research starts with the concept , not the word: identify the domain, the definition, and the term's place in a concept system, then choose the target term that denotes the same concept at the right degree of specificity . Check collocations and phraseology , not just the head noun.
349 words, about 2 min05Grammar, Spelling, and Mechanics in the Target Language
Grammar, spelling, and mechanics errors are the most visible defects in a target text and the easiest to eliminate. Candidates should command agreement (subject–verb, noun–adjective, pronoun–antecedent), case and preposition government , tense and aspect in reported and conditional structures, article and classifier usage, and word order in questions, negatives, and subordinate clauses.
328 words, about 2 min06Professional Standards and Translator Ethics
Professional standards address fidelity and completeness to the source, confidentiality toward the client and the people named in the text, competence toward the task, and transparency toward everyone involved. A certified translator is expected to accept only work within their language combination and subject competence, to prepare adequately, and to disclose any limitation that could affect the result.
336 words, about 2 min