Essay
The essay (required in the specialities of English language and literature, Russian and Slavic philology, French language and literature, Spanish language and literature, German language and literature and Scandinavian languages and literatures) is a 7200-9000-character text in which the student candidates in a structured manner discuss a problem related to the speciality. The essay is written in the language of the speciality (English, Russian, French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Norwegian or Danish). Essay topics for all specialities are announced on this page on 15 February.
Aspects considered in assessing the essay:
- adherence to the topic;
- clear formulation of the problem;
- logic and coherence of the argument;
- structuring of the text in accordance with the academic argumentation rules of the language of the speciality;
- correctness and idiomaticity of language.
The essay has to be the author’s original work and has to be written within the time given. The deadline for submitting the essay is 15 March (application deadline). The results of the essay can be used on admission to the Foreign language teacher curriculum (see Entrance requirements for the Foreign language teacher curriculum).
In the speciality of classical philology, student candidates prepare an independent translation with their commentary of either a Latin or Ancient Greek text excerpt of an intermediate level of difficulty into Estonian. This means that applicants to the classical philology specialty are expected to be proficient in Estonian. The length of the text is 150-200 words. Excerpts will be made public on this page on 15 February. The deadline for the translation is 15 March (application deadline).
Aspects considered in assessing the translation:
- the adequacy or independence of the translation;
- the grammatical, syntactic and lexical correctness of the translation;
- the candidate’s ability to comment on the names and phenomena in the text from the perspective of daily culture, ancient history, mythology, geography, topography and the author’s biography;
- in the case of a verse text the competence of determining the meter.