The CHI-Spanish performance exam runs 60 minutes at a test center: four consecutive dialogs (70%), two one-play simultaneous items (17%), three sight translation passages (11%), and one written translation multiple-choice question (2%). You need 450 on a 300-600 scale, and every recorded response is rated on lexical accuracy, grammar, and quality of speech. Practice each mode under its real replay rules, and audit meaning, not just fluency.
What the CHI-Spanish performance exam is
CHI-Spanish is CCHI's bilingual performance exam for Spanish healthcare interpreters, and it is the second of two required exams after the CoreCHI knowledge exam.
CCHI offers the Certified Healthcare Interpreter credential for Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic. Every CHI candidate must pass the multiple-choice CoreCHI exam first, then pass the language-specific performance exam. The performance exam must be taken and passed within 12 months of passing CoreCHI; if that window lapses, the CoreCHI score expires and must be retaken before you can attempt CHI again.
The exam blueprint comes from a job task analysis that surveys practicing interpreters, most recently in 2022. The current CHI exam specifications took effect October 1, 2023, and CCHI's CHI-Spanish program has been accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies since 2012. This guide follows those 2023 specifications.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; Eligibility – CCHI — Certification eligibility and requirements
Exam structure and testing conditions
The exam has ten items across four modes, all completed in 60 minutes at a proctored test center, with each mode under different audio and replay rules.
Four consecutive interpreting dialogs carry 70% of the score. Each dialog contains 14 to 24 utterances, each utterance is up to 35 words, and you may listen to each utterance up to two times before recording your response. Two simultaneous items carry 17%: each is up to two minutes (about 180 to 220 words), played only once, and you must speak while listening rather than afterward.
Three sight translation passages carry 11%; each is no longer than three sentences, up to 45 words, read on screen and interpreted aloud into Spanish. One four-option multiple-choice question carries 2%; it asks you to select the accurate Spanish translation of an English passage of 85 to 110 words. Consecutive and simultaneous audio is recorded at roughly 120 to 150 words per minute, an average conversational speed.
| Mode | Items | Direction | Score share | Key condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consecutive interpreting | 4 dialogs | Bidirectional, English to/from Spanish | 70% | Up to 2 plays per utterance; notes on paper |
| Simultaneous interpreting | 2 items | Unidirectional; one from English, one into English | 17% | One play; respond while listening |
| Sight translation | 3 passages | English text read aloud into Spanish | 11% | Max 3 sentences and 45 words per passage |
| Written translation | 1 question | English passage, four Spanish options | 2% | One option is an accurate translation |
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; CCHI CHI Exam Specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023
Eligibility before you can test
You must be at least 18, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, complete 40 hours of healthcare interpreter training, and document proficiency in both English and Spanish before applying.
CCHI's baseline requirements apply to every applicant: a minimum age of 18 with a U.S. high school diploma (or GED) or its equivalent from another country, at least 40 hours of interpreter training specific to healthcare, and documented proficiency in English and your language of service. CCHI does not accredit or endorse beginner-level training programs, so evaluate courses on their content rather than on any promised exam results.
For CHI-Spanish, accepted Spanish proficiency evidence includes a diploma taught in Spanish, a U.S. diploma with the Seal of Biliteracy, a degree from an institution instructing in Spanish, a passing score on a CCHI-approved language proficiency test at Advanced-Mid on the ACTFL scale or 2+ on the ILR scale, or an established interpreter certification with a Spanish performance test. Applications are typically reviewed within 10 business days, and once approved you can schedule your exam.
One delivery detail matters for planning: the oral performance CHI exams are administered only at physical test centers within the USA and Canada, not online.
- Upload eligibility documents as pdf or jpg/png files, using English characters in file names
- Non-English documents must include an English translation in the same file
- CCHI staff answer application questions by email and host a monthly live certification Q&A
Official sources: Eligibility – CCHI — Certification eligibility and requirements; Dual Language Proficiency – CCHI — LOTE requirements for CHI Spanish
How your recorded responses are scored
Every audio response is rated on three equally weighted scales: lexical content and accuracy, grammar, and quality of speech. The passing score is 450 on a 300-600 scale.
The lexical scale measures how completely you preserve units of information: single words, phrases, or concepts from the source. Omissions, additions, inaccurate renderings, and register changes all count as errors here. The grammar scale evaluates tense, agreement, pronouns, and word order in both languages. The quality-of-speech scale covers false starts, hesitations, self-repairs, pronunciation, and pace that hinders understanding.
Keep two weightings separate in your mind. The 70/17/11/2 split describes how much each exam mode contributes to the total score. The three rating scales apply equally to your recorded responses regardless of mode, so review meaning, grammar and delivery separately during practice.
Your total score is scaled to a 300-600 range with the passing standard set at 450, and equating keeps that standard comparable across test forms. The score report also shows a percentage per subdomain, but these are informational: no subdomain has its own pass or fail status, the total score is not an average of them, and CCHI advises interpreting them cautiously because each content area contains few items.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and score explanation; CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page
Consecutive interpreting: notes and the second listen
Train a compact note system for numbers, negation, and verbs with tense, and treat the second play as a targeted check rather than a default.
Each dialog utterance is short, up to 35 words, and you may hear it twice. The 2023 specifications list the underlying skills: short-term memory retention, note-taking, active listening, discerning dialects, maintaining accuracy and register, and articulating clearly. A workable optional note habit is a vertical layout with one idea per line, symbols for negation and increase or decrease, and circled figures, so a glance reconstructs the message before you record.
Use the lexical scale to check for omissions, changed meanings and invented additions. Professional standards require complete messages without adding, omitting or substituting, while preserving the speaker's register and tone. A formal instruction and a casual remark should retain their different registers.
If you often need the second play, compare your first notes and recording with the source transcript. Identify what you missed before choosing whether to practice listening, retention or note-taking.
- Optional drill: record practice dialogs, then replay your own audio and count preserved, omitted, and added information units against a transcript
- Optional drill: practice deciding during the first listen whether you actually need the second
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; CCHI CHI Exam Specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023; CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and score explanation; NCIHC National Standards of Practice (2005) — Accuracy standard
Simultaneous interpreting: speaking while listening
Two one-play items test your ability to interpret at conversation speed while the speaker continues, so a short, controlled lag and unbroken delivery are the trainable skills.
Each item runs up to two minutes, plays once, and demands a response in real time. Once the audio passes, a missed moment cannot be recovered, and hesitations or self-repairs register immediately on the quality-of-speech scale. The listed skills mirror the consecutive set, with simultaneous listening, processing, and interpreting added.
As an optional preliminary drill, shadow a recorded Spanish or English segment by repeating it as it plays. Then practice interpreting a segment into the other language and compare your recording against the source for meaning, grammar and delivery. Shadowing alone does not test bilingual transfer. Do not add filler or replace a precise message with an approximation simply to keep speaking.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; CCHI CHI Exam Specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023; CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and score explanation
Sight translation and the written translation item
Sight translation rewards reading ahead and matching document register; the multiple-choice item rewards judging translation fidelity across a whole passage.
The three sight translation passages are brief but come from different types of U.S. healthcare documents, and the specifications test sight translation protocols and knowledge of which documents suit the mode. Reading one clause ahead of your voice, marking numbers and negation during a silent pre-read, and deciding the register in advance are practical habits; a shift in register counts as a lexical error on the rating scales.
The final item inverts the task: you read an English passage of 85 to 110 words and choose the one accurate Spanish translation among four options. Comparing options in layers works well: first check that key information units survive intact, then look for tense or agreement errors inside each option, then compare register, since an option that softens a warning or adds reassurance has changed the meaning. At a 2% weight this single question is small, so commit to an answer and move on rather than revisiting it mentally during the audio sections.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; CCHI CHI Exam Specifications 2023 — Performance Examination, effective October 1, 2023; CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and score explanation
Practice exercise: audit meaning before polishing delivery
Use this back-translation exercise to train the lexical accuracy scale: find the reversed negation and the unsupported causal claim, then state the faithful meaning.
This exercise uses English throughout for analysis; it is a meaning-audit drill, not a substitute for bilingual interpreting practice. All premises are stated so the answer is unique.
Practice exercise
Premises: (1) In a mock consecutive dialog, a provider asks a patient whether she took her morning medication. (2) The patient's source utterance, rendered in English, is: 'I did not take the tablets this morning because I felt nauseated.' (3) A candidate's recorded interpretation, back-translated into English, is: 'I took the tablets this morning and they made me nauseated.' (4) The exam's lexical scale counts omissions, additions, inaccurate renderings, and register changes as errors, and professional accuracy standards require preserving the speaker's message completely. Task: identify each lexical error in the candidate's version and write a faithful English meaning statement.
Show the answer
The candidate's version contains two lexical errors. First, it reverses the negation: the patient did not take the tablets, but the interpretation says she did. Second, it adds an unsupported causal claim: 'they made me nauseated' states that the tablets caused the nausea, while the source says the patient felt nauseated and treats that feeling as her reason for not taking them. A faithful meaning statement is: 'I did not take the tablets this morning because I felt nauseated.'
Whether the medication was taken is exactly the information the provider needs, so reversing the negation inverts the clinical meaning of the exchange. The added 'and they made me nauseated' attributes a cause the source never states; the patient reports a feeling that preceded her decision, not a reaction to the tablets. Under the lexical scale, the negation reversal is an inaccurate rendering and the causal claim is an addition, so the response loses ground regardless of how fluently it is delivered. Note what a faithful rendering preserves: the negation, the time marker (this morning), the object (the tablets), the feeling (nauseated), and the direction of the causal link. In your own practice recordings, auditing meaning through a back-translation like this makes negation and causality errors visible before they cost points.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam Score – CCHI — Rating scales and score explanation; NCIHC National Standards of Practice (2005) — Accuracy standard
On exam day
Expect a 60-minute, forward-only exam at a test center, with a separate 15-minute tutorial beforehand and no breaks once it starts.
Before the exam launches, you complete an audio check with your headset and have 15 minutes to read directions and try a tutorial; this preparation time does not count toward your 60 minutes. You receive paper and pencil for notes as you would use on the job, and the proctor collects and shreds them afterward. Once started, the exam is forward-only: you cannot return to earlier items or listen back to your own recordings, and after 60 minutes the test submits automatically with whatever responses are saved.
You may not take breaks or leave the testing room; a bathroom break is possible only if pre-approved as an ADA accommodation. If a technical or other issue affects your exam, notify the proctor before leaving the test center and contact CCHI in writing within 24 hours. Your score is emailed within 6 to 8 weeks after the last date of the testing window, not after your individual test date, and current window dates are listed on CCHI's scheduling page.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page
Your next steps
Confirm your eligibility documents, verify current testing windows on CCHI's official pages, and build practice around the exam's real replay rules and rating scales.
Start from the official documents cited throughout this guide: the CHI exam description for conditions, the 2023 exam specifications for the tested domains and skills, and the scheduling page for current windows. If you have not yet passed CoreCHI, note the 12-month clock and plan your performance-exam preparation inside it rather than deferring.
The most efficient practice mirrors the test: record yourself under each mode's actual constraints, then score your own audio separately for information units, grammar, and delivery. The free practice materials and study guides linked below give you a place to begin.
Official sources: CHI™ Exam – CCHI — Exam description page; Eligibility – CCHI — Certification eligibility and requirements
Official sources
Exam facts checked against CCHI's official pages and the 2023 exam specifications: