Formerly known as the Russian Prototype AP Exam, the NEWL® is administered annually in Spring , and intended for secondary school students who have completed a minimum of two to three years (or the equivalent) of academic work in Russian language and culture, which is comparable to an advanced-level college Russian course. The NEWL is designed to provide a set of measurements of functional proficiency in Russian of incoming freshmen for use as a predictive assessment and placement tool by American colleges and universities.