<p>I want to learn how to speak Mandarin at the university because I don’t know how to speak it, but I can already read Chinese. It costs about $15 to take one placement test. Do you think I should take the placement test or just start as a beginner?</p>
<p>Since the test is probably mostly written, I don’t think it would be to your advantage to take it. What if you were placed in an intermediate or even superior level? Speaking a language is quite a different thing from reading/writing it.</p>