Frequently Asked Questions

The exam runs on javascript, so any modern browser with javascript enabled will work. We've tested it on IE 7+, Firefox, and Chrome. The exam will not run on IE 6.

The Greek in the exam uses Unicode fonts so most computers will not have to download any particular font for the exam to display properly. You can find more information about downloading additional Unicode fonts that contain ancient Greek characters here.

Custom exams and quizzes that instructors generate are always free. Instructors can use the tools of the site for their classes indefinitely in this fashion. This is our way to thank instructors and encourage them to participate in the project. For the national exam, students are charged $10 each time they take the exam, or $20 for a year-long pass. Instructors can simply require the exam in their syllabus just as they assign required textbooks and have the students pay through our website. If a school insists on paying for students, once students have registered and joined an instructor's class, the instructor can pay for a single or unlimited pass for the students they choose. Some schools do this and charge a course fee to get reimbursed.

Anyone may take the exam, but if you are taking the exam to fulfill a particular class requirement you must join your instructor's class in our system first.

The exam is primarily a beginning Greek exam. It examines vocabulary, morphology, and basic grammar generally included in beginning Greek textbooks. However, because the NBGE is a computer-adaptive test (the difficulty adjusts to a student's skill level as they work through the exam), it can be used for more advanced courses.

The National Biblical Greek Exam cannot make any claims or promises as to how different schools, individuals, or accrediting institutions will value the exam. Passing the exam does not bind any educational institution, educator, or accrediting institution to grant any credit for the exam. Such entities make their own individual policies in these matters. The exam does function well as part of an evaluation for entrance or transfer requirements and a number of schools are using it for that purpose. We encourage users to include their best exam certificate in college applications.

The exam should be seen as a tool that provides data for individual instructors to interpret and evaluate rather than the final word in Greek assessment. Ideally, specific grades should be left up to individual instructors that have specific goals in mind for the language. However, the exam does provide scores and percentages which may be used in the process.

Validity is a difficult issue for any exam that any instructor generates. How does any exam ensure that it accurately measures the knowledge of each student? Often, knowledge isn't something that can be easily or objectively measured, like the length of a stick. Sometimes we are more perceptive, creative, or have better memories than at other times. Further, knowledge is such a part of a person that it is best to assess knowledge through many forms of measurement and at many times and especially through personal interaction. This is why instructors normally have numerous components to student grades rather than a single test. The more complex the issue the more complex our methods of measurement should be. We should not expect any single test to be exhaustively valid for something as complex as the Greek language. This is especially true for an external exam consisting of 50 multiple choice questions. For this reason we recommend that instructors do not use the exam as the final determination as to whether a student has gained a knowledge of beginning Biblical Greek. The benefit of an external comparable exam is that the instructor and student can compare the performance to others in the discipline and the exam can be used as one more learning tool for the student.