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“I Failed the Practice Test. Now What?”

November/December 2022 Issue

By David Stephenson By now most people are aware that taking a practice test is a highly effective way to assess one’s readiness to take ATA’s certification exam. Each practice test is a former exam passage that’s evaluated by a member of the same team that grades the actual exam, applying the same grading standards […]

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Rites of Passage: Selecting and Preparing Source Texts for the Certification Exam

September/October 2022 Issue

Ask an ATA certification exam grader to name the most difficult thing about the job, and chances are they’ll reply, “passage selection.” You might wonder what’s so hard about this task. If a group of graders needs a new passage, don’t they just find a random article in an online newspaper, copy and paste a […]

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Level of Performance Targeted by ATA’s Certification Credential

July/August 2022 Issue

In 2020, Knapp & Associates International, Inc., presented its “Review of the ATA Certification Program”1 to ATA’s Board of Directors. This review included a number of recommendations for enhancing the validity and standing of ATA’s certification credential, many of which have already been implemented by the Certification Committee. The following were among the highest priorities […]

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The Certification Exam: In Demand and On Demand!

May/June 2022 Issue

ATA recently launched its second year of offering the certification exam online. In 2021, we began partnering with ExamRoom.AI, an international remote testing platform, to allow candidates to take the exam from home. After some initial hiccups, this proved to be a successful and popular collaboration. In all, 150 candidates took the online exam, whereas […]

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Demystifying ATA’s Certification Exam: Better Off “Literal” or “Free”?

March/April 2022 Issue

A common misconception about ATA’s certification exam is that candidates must translate literally or word-for-word to be successful. Even those who aren’t susceptible to this myth might wonder how much latitude they have when translating a given text. This column will clarify the difference between an excessively literal translation and a precisely accurate one, and […]

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Practical Tips for Taking ATA’S Certification Exam Online

November/December 2021 Issue

You can now take ATA’s certification exam online anywhere, but how does it really work? As a past exam taker, I would like to share some practical tips for those preparing for the online exam.1 Prepping for the Exam Familiarize yourself with ATA’s explanation of error categories, the flowchart for error point decisions, and framework […]

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Online Exam Proctoring: Something Old, Something New

September/October 2021 Issue

With the successful launch of ATA’s online certification exam, we’re starting to ramp up capacity and open more spaces for candidates.1 (For basic information about the online exam, check out the Certification Forum column in the July/August issue.2) This expanded accessibility to candidates opens possibilities for proctors as well, since they’re no longer limited by […]

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The Online Exam Is Here!

July/August 2021 Issue

ATA is excited to offer our certification exam online to complement our traditional in-person format. For the first time, members are now able to take the exam from anywhere in the world without having to travel to a live sitting! How Does the New Format Work? We’ve partnered with ExamRoom.AI, a remote online proctoring company […]

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The What and Why of Certification Exam Conditions

May/June 2021 Issue

As we move toward an online version of ATA’s certification exam, some long-standing exam conditions will be changing—things like bringing your own dictionaries and laptop to the exam sitting. Others, however, will remain the same. Here’s a review of the latter, with an explanation of why they’re applied to our testing program. Three-Hour Time Limit: […]

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