How good is your Indonesian? Find out by taking our proficiency test.
The text is an essay about the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Read the following text carefully and fill in the blanks choosing one of the words provided. Remember that this is a very demanding task, and only those wo are educated native speakers or have native speaker competence (C2) will be able to complete the test without mistakes.
The concept of ‘feeling’ a language is at the heart of explaining what being a ‘native’ speaker means. It’s so much more than speaking it from a young age and continuing to speak it into adulthood. Being a C2 ‘native’ speaker means having this language in your very bones, in your head and feeling its intricacies and subtleties completely. Therefore, you must score at least 85% to qualify as a ‘native’ speaker.
In order to test for this highest level of language competence, the test sometimes offers two words that both are ‘correct’, but only one of the two feels ‘right’ in the context of this sentence. You may be a very fluent speaker of Indonesian/Malay and consider yourself ‘native’, but in order to qualify for C2 level competence you must also have mastery in the formal register of the language. Therefore, most heritage speakers will not qualify as C2 native speakers, and even as a native speaker, you will only be able to score C2 competence if you are an educated native speaker.
Test Section 1
Choose the appropriate words to complete the sentences.
Once you have taken the test, write down your score. You will need it later to calculate your overall score and Indonesian language proficiency level. The highest score is 30.
Test Section 2
This task is even trickier than the first one, as in this proficiency test you not only have to fill in the blanks with whole words, but often with parts of words. Note that for some words you will be tested on your proper knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes. So you can expect a word such as “peraturan” having two blanks, namely ___atura___.
Again, don’t forget to note down your score. The highest score is 15.
Test Section 3
Write down your section 3 score. The highest score is 20.
Test Section 4
Write down your section 4 score. The highest score is 15.
Test Section 5
Write down your section 5 score. The highest score is 25.
Test Section 6
Before you start this test, get a stop watch ready. You must complete the test within 15 minutes without any help. No dictionaries are allowed.
Write down your section 6 score. The highest score is 20.
Test Section 7 (Malaysian)
Before you start this test, get a stop watch ready. You must complete the test within 15 minutes without any help. No dictionaries are allowed. Most blanks to fill in are for word parts. Let’s say, a word is pustakawan. It can be that only the first part of the word is displayed, and you have to complete the final part, or that the final part is displayed and you have to complete the first part. Very often, you will have to complete missing prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes. For the word mengutarakan, the prefix me-, and/or suffix -kan may be missing.
Write down your section 7 score. The highest score is 24.
Test Section 8 (Malaysian)
Before you start this test, get a stop watch ready. You must complete the test within 7 minutes without any help. No dictionaries are allowed.
Write down your section 8 score. The highest score is 9.