The CHI-Arabic exam is CCHI's bilingual performance test for Arabic healthcare interpreters, taken after the CoreCHI knowledge exam and within 12 months of passing it. It lasts 60 minutes: four consecutive dialogs worth 70%, two single-play simultaneous monologs worth 17%, three sight-translation passages worth 11%, and one multiple-choice translation item worth 2%. Trained human raters score your recorded audio on three equally weighted scales — lexical content and accuracy, grammar, and quality of speech — and the passing scaled score is 450. Results arrive six to eight weeks after the testing window closes.
What the CHI-Arabic exam certifies
The CHI™-Arabic exam is the bilingual performance test for Arabic healthcare interpreters within CCHI's Certified Healthcare Interpreter certification. You take it after passing the CoreCHI™ knowledge exam, and you must pass it within 12 months of that CoreCHI result.
CCHI currently offers the CHI credential for Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish. Every CHI candidate passes two exams: the multiple-choice CoreCHI exam in English, then this language-specific performance exam. If a candidate does not pass the CHI exam within 12 months of passing CoreCHI, the CoreCHI score expires and must be retaken before another attempt.
A performance exam means your spoken responses are recorded and later evaluated by human raters. The CHI exam is delivered only in proctored test centers, and CCHI's eligibility pages state that the oral performance exams for Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish run only at physical test centers in the USA and Canada.
The current blueprint is the CHI Exam Specifications effective October 1, 2023. CCHI refreshes the exam's content domains and weightings through a job task analysis study conducted roughly every six to seven years, and it announces changes in advance.
Sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration; Eligibility – CCHI — Prerequisites and application
Eligibility and how to apply
Every CCHI applicant must meet four prerequisites before sitting any exam: minimum age and education, 40 hours of healthcare interpreter training, and documented proficiency in English and Arabic.
You submit these prerequisites as uploaded documents with an online application, which CCHI typically reviews within about 10 business days. Once approved, you can schedule your exams. For the Arabic requirement, accepted evidence includes a diploma taught in Arabic, a U.S. Seal of Biliteracy, a degree from a college instructing in Arabic, a degree in the language, or a proficiency test from a CCHI-approved vendor at ACTFL Advanced-Mid or ILR 2+ or higher.
Note that CCHI does not accredit, pre-approve, or endorse beginner training programs, and it cautions applicants to question any course promising exam success. Application and exam fees appear on CCHI's fees page, which changes on its own schedule rather than this guide's.
- You are at least 18 years old.
- You hold at minimum a U.S. high school diploma or GED, or an equivalent from another country.
- You have completed at least 40 hours of healthcare-specific interpreter training.
- You can document proficiency in both English and your primary language of service, Arabic.
Sources: Eligibility – CCHI — Prerequisites and application; Dual Language Proficiency – CCHI — LOTE requirements for CHI-Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish
Format, weights, and the rules of the recording booth
The exam is 60 minutes across four components, preceded by a separate 15-minute tutorial. It is forward-only: you cannot revisit items or replay your own recordings.
Before the timed exam starts, you complete an audio check and a tutorial; this preparation time does not count toward the 60 minutes. A countdown timer shows remaining time once the exam launches. At 60 minutes the test submits automatically with whatever responses you have saved, complete or not.
You receive paper and pencil for notes, which the proctor collects and shreds afterward. Notes are not scored; the exam scores your spoken responses and your answer to the written-translation multiple-choice item. You may not take breaks or leave the testing room, except a bathroom break pre-approved as an ADA accommodation.
| Mode | Weight | Input | Response rule | Main challenge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consecutive interpreting (4 dialogs) | 70% | Bidirectional dialogs of 14–24 utterances, each up to 35 words | Up to two listens per utterance, then record | Rendering every unit of information |
| Simultaneous interpreting (2 items) | 17% | One English and one Arabic monolog, up to 2 minutes (180–220 words) | Played once; interpret while listening | A short, steady lag |
| Sight translation (3 passages) | 11% | English healthcare document excerpts, up to 3 sentences and 45 words | Read on screen, record into Arabic | Natural Arabic phrasing on first reading |
| Written translation (1 item) | 2% | English passage of 85–110 words | Choose the accurate Arabic option among four | Spotting subtle distortion |
Sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration; CCHI CHI exam specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023
What the 2023 outline asks of each mode
CCHI's exam specifications list the knowledge and skills each domain draws on, and the lists overlap heavily across the interpreting modes.
The overlapping lists carry a practical message: accuracy, register, and self-monitoring recur in every mode, so training them transfers across the whole exam. Download the specifications PDF and the interface slides from CCHI's site for complete wording rather than relying on any summary, including this one.
- Consecutive interpreting (70%): terminology, idioms, usage, and cultural significance; grammar of both working languages; short-term memory; note-taking; active listening; fluency; discerning dialects; accuracy; maintaining register; clear articulation; self-monitoring; anticipatory listening.
- Simultaneous interpreting (17%): the same knowledge base, plus the distinct skill of listening, processing, and interpreting at the same time.
- Sight translation (11%): sight translation protocols; knowing which healthcare documents suit the task; reading and comprehending English; anticipatory reading; fluency, accuracy, register, articulation, and self-monitoring.
- Written translation (2%): written translation protocols; knowing which documents suit written translation; comprehension in both languages; writing in the target language.
Sources: CCHI CHI exam specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023
How raters score what you record
Each audio response is rated on three equally weighted scales — lexical content and accuracy, grammar, and quality of speech — and the passing scaled score is 450 on a 300–600 range.
Lexical content and accuracy measures how completely you preserve units of information, the words or phrases that each carry a single concept. Omissions, additions, inaccurate renderings, and register changes all count as errors on this scale. Grammar covers command of both languages: verb tense and agreement, pronouns, and word order. Quality of speech addresses delivery — false starts, hesitations, repeated self-repairs, pronunciation, and pace that hinders understanding.
Your total is a scaled score between 300 and 600, with the passing standard set at 450, and statistical equating keeps that standard comparable across test forms. The score report also shows a percentage for each subdomain, but CCHI cautions these are guides based on few items, and your total is not the average of the subdomains. If you retake, CCHI advises practicing and improving all modes of interpreting, not just the weakest percentage.
Results are emailed within roughly six to eight weeks after the last date of the entire testing window, not after your individual test date, because every recorded response is evaluated by human raters once testing closes.
Sources: CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and scaled scoring; CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration
Test-day rules that are easy to miss
The recording format comes with strict procedures: no breaks without a pre-approved accommodation, and a two-step written process for reporting problems.
Candidates are monitored and video-recorded throughout, and leaving the testing room without a pre-approved ADA accommodation can end the exam immediately. Take the pre-exam audio check seriously, to confirm the headset records you properly.
If a technical or other problem is not resolved at the center and you believe it affected your exam, tell the proctor before leaving so an issue report is filed, and separately email CCHI within 24 hours. CCHI handles communication about the testing experience in writing only.
Sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration
Preparation priorities that match the format
Train against the actual constraints: two listens in consecutive, one pass in simultaneous, and first-reading sight translation, scored on lexical accuracy, grammar, and speech quality.
What follows is study advice, not an official requirement. Record yourself rather than practicing silently, since the exam captures audio only. In consecutive work, treat the two permitted listens as separate jobs: the first for overall meaning, the second to confirm numbers, names, and qualifiers before you record. Keep notes as anchors for those details rather than a transcript.
In simultaneous work, shadow the speaker in the same language first for fluency, then interpret with a deliberately short lag, favoring complete plain phrasing over polished but unfinished sentences. In sight translation, read the full sentence before speaking so English word order does not dictate your Arabic. For the multiple-choice item, compare options against the source passage unit by unit rather than by overall feel.
Register deserves deliberate attention because a register change is scored as a lexical accuracy error, and the outline lists maintaining register and discerning dialects among the tested skills. Aim to preserve each speaker's formality and level of technicality, and build fluency in a working variety of Arabic you can sustain without hesitation.
Broader professional standards point the same way. The NCIHC National Standards of Practice, widely used in the field, call for rendering messages completely without adding, omitting, or substituting, and for correcting interpretation errors promptly. Treat these as practice background, not as an additional CHI scoring category.
The exercise below trains the checking habit in English, the same habit raters reward in both directions of the exam. It is a written meaning audit, not a bilingual performance item, and it cannot by itself measure your interpreting skill.
Practice exercise
In a practice dialog you are studying (this is not an exam item), the English meaning of a patient’s Arabic message is: "I did not take the tablets this morning because I felt nauseated." A classmate's draft rendering is: "I took the tablets this morning and they made me nauseated." Using CCHI's rating dimensions as a checklist, name every change in meaning and give a faithful English rendering.
Show answer
The draft reverses the negation: the patient did not take the tablets, while the draft says the patient took them. It also changes the causal relationship: the patient skipped the tablets because nausea came first, but the draft claims the tablets caused nausea afterward. A faithful rendering restores both: "I did not take the tablets this morning because I felt nauseated."
Both faults fall under lexical content and accuracy. Reversing the negation distorts a unit of information, and the added cause introduces a claim the source never made — under CCHI's published scales, an addition counts as an error just as an omission does. On the exam, the same audit applies in either language direction: catching a flipped negation or an invented cause before you record protects exactly the dimension where those errors land. Practicing this check in English isolates the skill; recorded bilingual practice is still needed to build the full performance.
Sources: CCHI CHI exam specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023; CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and scaled scoring; NCIHC National Standards of Practice (2005) — Accuracy standard; CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration
Before you book
Confirm the two-exam path, your documents, and the current testing window before paying any fee.
Administrative details such as fees, windows, and accommodation requests change on CCHI's schedule, so treat CCHI's pages as the authority. If you want more practice material, the free practice set for this exam and the broader study guide library are linked below.
- Pass CoreCHI first, then take and pass CHI-Arabic within 12 months of that passing score.
- Assemble eligibility evidence, including your Arabic language-proficiency documentation, before starting the application.
- Check CCHI's current testing schedule, since the CHI exam runs only during quarterly windows at test centers in the USA and Canada.
- Read the October 2023 exam specifications and the interface slides so the format holds no surprises.
Sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description and administration; Eligibility – CCHI — Prerequisites and application
Sources
Facts checked September 15, 2026: