UOB English Placement case studies
UOB English Placement · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The UOB English Placement is an institutional assessment used to sort incoming students at the University of Bahrain into English courses that match their current proficiency. It is aimed at applicants and newly admitted students who need to demonstrate their reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills before registration, rather than at candidates seeking a professional certification. The UOB English Placement case studies are 5 cases and about 2,102 words.
1The Placement Interview Transcript
A candidate, Rina, sits a 20-minute recorded speaking-and-listening placement interview. What was the hardest part about settling in?" Rina replies at length: "Yes, I move here two years ago.
477 words, about 2 min2The Two Reading Passages
A placement test gives two short reading texts. Text A (120 words): a notice about a library's new opening hours, with a table of times and one sentence: "Members may borrow up to eight items for three weeks; renewals are not permitted during the final week." Text B (150 words): an opinion column arguing that city centres should ban cars, containing the sentence: "While critics claim the ban would harm business, the evidence from three European cities suggests the opposite." A candidate answers all four Text A questions correctly in 90 seconds but gets two of three Text B questions wrong.
415 words, about 2 min3The Tense-Choice Rewrite
A candidate is asked to complete a short writing task: describe a job they once had and a plan for the future. I am a waiter there.
422 words, about 2 min4The Near-Synonym Choice
In a vocabulary section, a candidate must choose the best word for each gap. Two items are revealing: Item 1: "The manager asked the team to the new policy before Monday." Options: (a) implement (b) make (c) do (d) perform.
392 words, about 2 min5The Coherence Problem in a Short Essay
First, they can get money. Second, they can get experience.
396 words, about 2 min