Unless otherwise noted, these terms and their definitions are for the purposes of this part.

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Consultant. Defined in 5 CFR part 304.

Excepted service. Appointments in the excepted service are civil service appointments within the Federal Government that do not confer competitive status and are excepted from competitive service by or pursuant to statute, by the President, or by the Office of Personnel Management, and which are not in Senior Executive Service.

Foreign language. Any language other than English.

Language proficiency. The U.S. Government relies on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale to determine language proficiency. According to the ILR scale:

(1) 0 is No Proficiency.

(2) 0+ is Memorized Proficiency.

(3) 1 is Elementary Proficiency.

(4) 1+ is Elementary Proficiency, Plus.

(5) 2 is Limited Working Proficiency.

(6) 2+ is Limited Working Proficiency, Plus.

(7) 3 is General Professional Proficiency.

(8) 3+ is General Professional Proficiency, Plus.

(9) 4 is Advanced Professional Proficiency.

(10) 4+ is Advanced Professional Proficiency, Plus.

(11) 5 is Functional Native Proficiency.

Special government employee (SGE). Defined in 18 U.S.C. § 202.