College placement test Help

[TheMinion]

I am scheduled to take a college placement test, for Japanese, on November 7th. I am dual-enrolling (I am currently a Senior in high school) with this college so that I can take Japanese classes, but since the first semester has already started, my only option is to take this placement test and hope I get accepted into the second semester of the Beginner Japanese course. I didn't think this would be a problem, as I am great at studying on my own, but then I found out that they wont tell me what I need to study.

I know a good amount of grammar, as I constantly study new grammar rules, but I fall short in my amount of vocabulary. I am currently in the process of memorizing all of the vocab in the Genki 1 book, but I am unsure if this is enough, or if it is overkill.

So, my question to you all is this: About how much material would be covered in the first semester of a year 1 Japanese course; how many words should I memorize, and how far into grammar would they go in one semester. I'm not sure if they learn any Kanji in the first semester, so I do not know if I should bother memorizing the Kanji for all these words or not.

I was originally planning on finding a student who is in the class, but I do not know how to go about doing this. Also, I thought about going through the college's peer-tutoring program, but I just don't have the money for it right now.

 

[Charles Barkley]

Can't you find a professor at that University's email address somehow? I.e. by contacting the school via its website or by using your school's office? First year classes must vary considerably in terms of what they cover. Also, many do study ~80 kanji in their first semester.

 

[TheMinion]

It's been somewhat difficult getting ahold of the language department, even for my school's counselor. Eventually, the college just had us talk to admissions and they told us that they weren't able to tell me what was on the test, nor what the class covered. I'm not sure why, though... Maybe they are just trying to make it hard for me because they don't want a high school student to skip the first semester?

 

[nice gaijin]

it depends on the language program you're getting into. At my school, each Genki book took two semesters to go through completely. If you have Genki 1 down pat, you should be ready for the second or maybe even third semester. Don't worry too much about the test; they're designed to place you at an appropriate level.

Most "beginning level" courses start from scratch, so if you already have kana, some grammar and vocabulary down, you shouldn't get placed in the first semester class.