How Does The DLPT Work?
The DLPT is administered on a regular basis to Defense Department linguists including military linguists serving in uniform. The test measures the speaker's ability to function as a speaker of another language in real-world situations.
The DLPT requires a lot of vocab “bottom up” to pass the lower levels; but for the higher levels, it requires “top down” recognition of contexts and “patterns of speech”. Students and linguists who have to translate every word do not do as well on the test as those who understand contextually.
Higher Level Passages and Lower Level Skills:
Proficiency scores are assigned to both the listening and reading portions. Scores can range from 0+ to 3 for lower-range (i.e., “easier”) languages or up to 4 on upper-range (more difficult) languages. To ensure currency, linguists take the DLPT every year.
DLAB And DLPT: Military Language Testing (And Pay ...
2+ Page 5. Listening: Able to understand the essentials of all speech in a standard dialect including technical discussions within a special field.
Language proficiency ratings for the lower-level tests range ...
DLI students, regardless of their course grades, may not graduate without achieving an L2/R2 on the DLPT. They must also pass a series of tests called FLO (Final Learning Objective) Tests, as well as achieve a minimum of 1+ on the OPI.
Defense Language Proficiency Tests - Wikipedia