Why do so many people fail translation and interpreting certification exams?

One of my online course alumni recently asked, “What are the main reasons for the low pass rate on the ATA certification exam?” (currently about 20%, although results vary by language). And in general, why do so many people fail translation and interpreting certification exams? Various sources quote even lower pass rates, perhaps even down into the single digits, for the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam; so….what’s going on?

Here’s my analysis, having taken:

• The ATA French to English translation certification exam (failed the practice test, passed the real test on the first try)
• The Colorado state court interpreter certification exam (passed all three sections on the first try, but barely; I passed the consecutive by one point)
• The SOSi immigration court interpreting exams (passed all three sections on the first try, with much better scores than I got on the state exam)
• The Glendon College Master of Conference Interpreting exit exams (passed on the first try)

By no means does this indicate that I’m the world’s best translator or interpreter. I’m not, but I have a good track record of preparing for and taking certification tests. Personally, I think that:

• Just as I’ve said, over, and over, that most freelancers’ primary marketing problem is simply not doing enough (of any kind of marketing), most people just don’t prepare enough. I started studying a year and a half ahead of time for the Colorado court interpreter exams, and I did about 400 hours of direct preparation for the exam, plus at least that many hours, if not more, working on my French speaking and auditory comprehension. By contrast, I talked to a lot of people who basically winged it. Like, maybe they practiced an hour or two during the week before the exam, but that was about it. So, most importantly, practice!
• Many people don’t take advantage of the preparation resources that exist. For the ATA exam, in most language combinations, you can take up to three practice tests. These are retired exams that are graded by the actual graders of the real exam. This is a huge/almost unheard-of resource…which most people don’t take advantage of. There are reasons: you have to pay for the practice test; it takes a long time to get your results, which then slows down your whole exam-taking process. But still, the practice test is, hands-down, the best way to predict how you’re going to do on the real test. Same thing with court interpreter exams: I talked to people who (are you sitting down…) had failed the state court interpreter exam more than once, and had never heard of, or bothered to look for, the practice tests that you can order from the entity that creates the exam.  Same thing with preparation groups: anecdotally, I think that a number of the ATA divisions have certification exam practice and preparation groups, which seem to result in much higher pass rates. However, most people who take the exams don’t participate in these groups, even though they’re free.
• The exams are hard. Let’s be honest about that. They’re designed to make sure that you can translate or interpret at a professional level, which is not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re self-taught.
• It’s hard to find good prep materials for interpreting exams in languages other than Spanish. A major advantage of the ATA exam is that there are practice tests for every language combination in which the exam is offered. This is not true of interpreting exams. For Spanish, you’re in luck. But if you’re LOTS (languages other than Spanish), you’re kind of on your own. This was a major obstacle when I took the French court interpreter exam: there is no French version of The Interpreter’s Edge (the main home study course for the state and federal court interpreter exams), nor does the National Center for State Courts have any French practice materials (although they do link to legal glossaries in multiple languages), and I think that the court systems in other French-speaking countries are so different that any practice materials from there would be minimally helpful. This makes it particularly hard to practice for court or medical consecutive exams, which are dialogues (as opposed to interpreting an entire speech for a conference interpreting exam), and you don’t know what language the speaker is going to be using until they start talking.
• People don’t adequately research the exam specifications. This sounds crazy, but it’s true. I’ve talked to people who didn’t know all kinds of things about the exam they were taking. They didn’t know what websites are and aren’t allowed on the ATA exam; they didn’t know that you typically can’t use headphones on the consecutive portion of an in-person court interpreting exam (because the tester has to hear the dialogue) and that you typically get to ask for two segments to be repeated; they didn’t know that there is typically a time limit on the consecutive portion of an interpreting exam. These are the worst reasons to fail an exam. You want to control absolutely everything that you can control: do your ATA practice test using the exact same computer setup that the real exam will use; practice consecutive interpreting without headphones; anything you can do to simulate the conditions of the real test.
• People practice in a scattershot way. “Analysis paralysis” is a huge issue when you’re preparing for an exam. What to practice, when to practice, how to practice, who to ask for feedback, just all of it. Instead, you need a simple, repeatable routine: translate one ATA exam-style practice passage every two weeks, and find another translator in your language combination who would like to exchange feedback; come up with an interpreting practice routine that you do in the same way every day. Mine: warm up for 10-15 minutes by shadowing or listening to the French news; practice for 10-15 minutes with Numerizer; interpret one consecutive speech and one simultaneous speech, alternating language directions each day.
• Exam-day nerves only add to the stress. Whether you take an exam at home or at a testing center, there are major points of anxiety. If you’re at home, you have to worry about the technology; if something goes wrong during the exam, you may fail because of something that really isn’t your fault. If you’re at a testing center, you have all of the variables that go along with that: finding the place, bringing everything you need, using their equipment. When I took the state court exam in person at a courthouse in Denver, the tester (see above: so that she could hear when to play the segments for the consecutive) was sitting close enough that she could have touched me, which was necessary but also very nerve-racking. Particularly in interpreting exams, this can lead to the snowball effect, where you are well-prepared in general, but you make a mistake, get flustered, and then everything spirals downhill. One main recommendation here: for interpreting exams, you have to practice with materials that are above your level, so that you develop strategies for dense material, fast speakers, reformulating around words you don’t know, etc.

I hope that if you’re preparing for an interpreting exam, you will find these tips helpful!