STC Spanish Translator Certification — how hard are the specialized terminology sections?
I've been translating Spanish-English professionally for about four years, mostly in legal and some general business documents, and I'm working toward the STC certification. My everyday translation work feels pretty solid but I'm worried about the specialized terminology sections — medical in particular, since I haven't worked in that domain much at all.
I started studying eight weeks ago and I'm doing timed translation exercises about two hours a day. My accuracy on legal passages is good, probably 85%+ on practice evaluations, but when I get into medical texts I'm slower and making more errors. The anatomy and pharmacology terminology doesn't have the intuitive cognates that legal Latin-origin terms do.
What I can't figure out is how the STC exam is actually structured. Is it multiple domains you pass separately, or one combined score? And how much of the exam is sight translation versus written? I've heard different things from different people and can't find a definitive answer.
My exam is booked ten weeks out, so I still have time to adjust prep if medical is really going to hurt my overall score. Has anyone found a good resource for building medical translation vocabulary fast?
Medical terminology was tough coming from a business background too. What actually worked was a bilingual medical dictionary and 30 new terms a day — it's dull but after six weeks the coverage is substantial enough to handle most exam passages.
Sight translation is definitely on there and it's worth practicing out loud, not just in your head. Being able to render a sentence naturally in real-time is a genuinely different skill from written translation where you have revision time.
The exam format I experienced was a combined score rather than domain-by-domain. Your legal strength can offset some medical weakness, which might relieve a bit of the pressure you're feeling about that gap.