Today I took the ChinesePod tests for the first time. Wow these are great tools that I never really used before! I took a newbie level test “for serious” just now. I just did the short version 20 questions though because i just wanted to get a taste. It was so cool, 15 multiple choice questions and 5 dictation questions. The best part is that you can take the test in characters or even in pinyin! It can be hard reading characters, especially at newbie level and I thought that option was just so cool.
Anyhow, I took the newbie level test in simplified characters and scored a 75%. I was a little disappointed! But one super cool thing about the ChinesePod tests is that the questions are randomly drawn from all the lessons in that entire level. WOW 
So I decided to take the newbie test again, you know maybe I had a extra hard set of questions that time. I took it again, totally different questions, guess what, 75% again.
These days I usually always listen to elementary lessons and understand about half the first time through. So i decided to take the elementary level test. Guess what, 80%, I felt satisfied. It reminded me that even though I usually listen to elementary level, it’s still a good idea to throw some newbie lessons in my mix.
Finally, I saw that in addition to tests to see how you are progressing in a level, there also is a placement test to help choose an appropriate level. It says “The test is randomly generated pulling from the lesson data of 3223 lessons.”
So, I decided to take the ChinesePod placement test “for serious”. It was hard, there were tons a super complex characters that I had definitely never seen, but I just took the short placement test, 20 questions, 15 multiple choice and 5 dictation just like the level tests. I scored 40% on the placement test and the system suggested the elementary level for me. So cool!!
In the end, these tests were alot of fun and gave me a gauge of where I am on my Mandarin road. The placement test even prompted me to change my profile to elementary, which felt cool. I plan to keep using the level tests to see how I progress. Next time I will try the longer test (45 questions).
It’s weird, I remember learning how to say ni hao and xie xie and not knowing how to read anything. Today these tests today showed me how far I have come, and of course how far I have to go. So cool 
, had fun with it and have a good gauge as to where you are! I am excited for you. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I hope others can use to this to help them as well.