Admissions

Tackling the MLAT

Preparing for the MLAT can seem a little daunting at first, particularly if you are taking the Linguistics test or the Language Aptitude test, which are quite unlike tests you will have taken before. But don’t worry – the MLAT isn’t as tough as it looks, and once you get stuck in it can be quite fun!

You will need to take the Modern Languages Admissions Test (MLAT);if you apply for an undergraduate degree in Modern Languages, Linguistics and their joint schools at the University of Oxford.

The MLAT is made up of different tests for different language and Linguistics courses, as well as a Philosophy test for the joint course of Philosophy and Modern Languages. The Philosophy test is 60 minutes long, and the other papers are 30 minutes long. You’ll need to take a maximum of two papers.

Which tests do you need to take?

Find out which test(s) you are required to take for your degree course here.

  1. Applicants for single language courses will need to take a test in the language for which they have applied.
  2. Applicants for the single language course in Russian will also need to sit the Language Aptitude test.
  3. Applicants for courses combining two modern languages will need to take tests in both the languages for which they have applied.
  4. Applicants for Philosophy and Modern Languages will need to take the Philosophy test.

The language tests are designed to test your knowledge of the basic structures of the language. If you are applying for a joint course with Linguistics or a single language where the first-year course includes the compulsory study of Linguistics, you will be required to take the Linguistics test. This test is designed to test how you approach different kinds of unfamiliar linguistic data and set about analysing them.

If you are applying to study a language from scratch, you will be required to take the Language Aptitude test. This test is designed test your ability to analyse how languages work, in a way which doesn’t depend on your knowledge of any particular language.

How should I prepare for the language tests?

The language test(s) are designed to test your knowledge of the language(s) you wish to study. Essentially, you need to read as much as you can in the language(s) you’re applying to study – newspapers, novels, and plays are all good options. The more you read, the more the grammar of the language(s) in questions will start to feel natural. In the test(s), your grammar will be tested, and you will be asked to translate from English into the foreign language, and from the foreign language into English. The translations are not designed to test the size of your vocabulary; focus on revising your grammar, not your vocabulary.

Scary as it might seem, begin by doing one of the past papers under test conditions (i.e., without a dictionary or grammar book). This will help you to work out what you need to revise. Use a grammar book to revise the topics you struggled with in the past paper, before doing another past paper. Remember, all your revision will help you with your A level (or equivalent) revision later on!

Maddison S, a tutor who is reading French and Linguistics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, suggests preparing for the language test(s) in the following ways:

“The MLAT language tests are basically assessing your approach to difficult grammar questions. Start preparing in the summer, to give yourself plenty of time. I would suggest you revise the structures you know are more difficult, because you’re likely to be tested on them – so, the subjunctive, relative clauses and pronouns, and so on. For French, there’ll probably be an exercise which asks you to join sentences with an appropriate relative pronoun, and an exercise which asks you to put a single, appropriate preposition into a sentence. My advice would be to go through a grammar book and revise your basic structures, before going on to more complex ones. If you have time, go through some A level past papers – for example, for French, Question 9 on the old AQA AS paper (Unit 1)is similar in style to the question on the MLAT testing your ability to conjugate verbs.

Remembering not to panic is perhaps even more important than perfecting your grammar. If you are faced with a structure you’re really not sure about, wing it! The tutors want to see how you deal with unfamiliar problems, so if you can’t think of an answer, don’t just leave a blank – that’s not very impressive. For example, when I took the MLAT, I had to conjugate ‘venir’ and ‘tenir’ into the subjunctive and I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to – but luckily for me, I was able to adjust the sentence to make it make sense in the past tense. It wasn’t a perfect translation but the tutor that marked it could see that I knew what the question was asking me to do, and that I just wasn’t totally on top of my more complex verb conjugations, and that’s okay. Not everyone has perfect knowledge of complex grammar before they come to Oxford (I certainly didn’t) and the tutors aren’t expecting you to know everything – they want you to be teachable, but they don’t need you to be an expert already. Just do your best, and come up with tactics to work your way through the kinds of problems you’re likely to face.

Nikita K., a MyTutor tutor who is reading Spanish and Linguistics at Hertford College, Oxford University, says it’s important to remember the following:

“Firstly, remember that you CAN prepare! 4-6 hours of revision should be enough to help you get a good mark. Secondly, focus on revising the things that will always come up – for example, in Spanish, ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ and ‘por’ and ‘para’ come up time and again. Thirdly, don’t worry if you don’t finish the paper – half an hour is not long at all, and it’s much better to do half the paper accurately than to rush through the paper making lots of errors. Good luck!”

Isabella S.,a tutor who is reading Spanish and Russian at The Queen’s College, Oxford University, says a bit of revision can go a long way:

“Getting your head round more difficult grammar, such as the pluperfect subjunctive in Spanish, will pay off. The tutors want to see who’s gone the extra mile, so revise in detail – yes, that means learning irregular verbs. Focus on revising grammar, not vocabulary – you can’t cover all the vocabulary that might come up, and nor are you expected to. When you come across an unfamiliar word in the test, don’t panic – use the context in which the word is used to make a good guess. The tutors don’t expect you to know everything already! On the day, be a bit wary of each question. The test is supposed to be challenging, so if a question seems too easy (i.e., it doesn’t seem to be testing something at least a bit tough), think again because you might have missed something.”

How should I prepare for the Linguistics test?

Most applicants for a joint course with Linguistics or a single language course where the first-year includes the compulsory study of Linguistics haven’t studied Linguistics before. The Linguistics test can be done by applicants who haven’t studied Linguistics before, and aren’t familiar with the technical terms used by linguists; the test is designed to test your ability to examine and interpret different kinds of unfamiliar linguistic data. You can use the past papers get used to the style of the test. Do the 2016 past paper under test conditions, and then use the answers to understand where you went wrong.

Maddison S, one of our tutors who is reading French and Linguistics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, suggests preparing for the Linguistics test in the following ways:

For the Linguistics test, you’ll be asked some questions which might seem a bit crazy for a beginner – often, they give you a totally made up language or a really obscure one that only 100 people speak or something. This test is designed to see what you can learn from phrases or sentences when you don’t even know what any of the words mean. To prepare, I’d recommend looking at the United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) test papers and problems, because the exercises are very similar to the ones in the Linguistics MLAT. I got a Bronze when I took the UKLO and I found the MLAT Linguistics test really quite easy, and if you’re a fan of Linguistics and/or languages in general, the UKLO is fun anyway! There will probably also be a more theoretical Linguistics question. To prepare for this, I’d just recommend reading around! You should be doing this anyway if you’re applying to study Linguistics.

How should I prepare for the Language Aptitude test?

If you apply to study a language from scratch, you will need to take the Language Aptitude test. The Language Aptitude test is designed to test your ability to make sense of a new language. The test will introduce you to an invented language, tell you a bit about how the invented language differs from English, and then ask you to translate from English into the invented language, and from the invented language into English. You should use the past papers to get used to the style of the test.

Do a past paper to keep up to speed with the kind of careful reading you are required to do, and to get used to spotting and interpreting the differences between similar forms. Essentially, you need to make sense of the invented language by comparing and contrasting similar phrases. When you are familiar with the style of the test, do the 2016 past paper under test conditions, and then use the answers to understand where you went wrong.

Isabella S, a tutor who is reading Spanish and Russian at The Queen’s College, Oxford University, shares her top tips:

“The Language Aptitude test is a challenge, but a fun one – it’s about spotting patterns. You need to work out what words mean, and when things like prefixes and suffixes are used, and then you need to use your knowledge of the invented language to translate into and out of the invented language. Be open-minded – the grammar of the invented language is likely to be very different from the grammar of the language(s) you know. Write down everything you work out as you go along; you’re working with an invented language, so you won’t be able to remember everything! I think my knowledge of the Latin case system really helped, because I was used to working out if a noun or pronoun was a subject, a direct object, or an indirect object. If you haven’t studied a language like Latin before, I’d suggest looking up case. You aren’t given a lot of time to complete the test, so it’s important to stay calm and focus throughout the test.”

William S., a tutor who is studying German and Italian at Exeter College, Oxford University, says:

“The Language Aptitude test is essentially a puzzle. Revising the grammar of the language(s) you are already studying is good preparation for the test, but it’ll also help to start thinking about grammar in general, especially if you haven’t studied a language with a case system (e.g. German) before. In the test, you’ll have to unearth the structure of the invented language from a series of phrases in that language – an understanding of the structure of languages in general will help you do this! To begin with, watch this video to get an understanding of what subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects are – in the test, you’ll probably need to look for the subject of each sentence.”

Following this, you should get your head round the following concepts:

Indirect object: A noun phrase referring to someone or something that is affected by the action of a transitive verb (typically as a recipient), but is not the primary object (e.g. him in give him the book).

Adjective: A word naming an attribute of a noun, such as sweet, red, or technical.

Verb: A word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.

Adverb: A word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing manner, place, time, or degree (e.g. gently, here, now, very). Some adverbs, for example sentence adverbs, can also be used to modify whole sentences.

Preposition: A word governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause, as in ‘the man on the platform’, ‘she arrived after dinner’, ‘what did you do it for ?’.

Good luck! If you’d like to book in some lessons with one of our expert MLAT tutors, have a search or give us a call on 0203 773 6020.

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