nothing of what follows will make too much sense. not even to me. i am writing it down so it does. unfortunately it doesn’t sink in, it looks i am trapped in a labyrinth designed for mice.
for my spanish exam i have to prepare lots of things that sum up to an ideal 100% (of which the examiners require that i achieve a base 70% in order to call it successful). the point averages of the exam sections are uneven, and they roughly look like this:
group one includes:
reading comprehension scored up to 20 points and
personal written expression scored up to 15 points
all adding up to 35 points out of which 24.5 are required in order to go on
group two includes:
grammar and vocabulary quiz scored up to 20 points
out of which i need to get at least 14 in order to go on
group three includes:
listening comprehension sored up to 15 points and
oral interview scored up to 30 points
all adding up to 45 points out of which i need to beg for at least 31.5 points in order to call my exam successful
The branching out of sessions is as follows:
in reading comprehension i am given three texts, all compulsory. for the first one i have true/false statements, for the second i have multiple choice exercises, for the third and last again true/false statements.
in writing, i am given three options for a composition (out of which i am to choose one) and three options for a personal letter (out of which i am to choose two).
If everything goes right, i am supposed to put my pen down after 1h 45 mins, have a 15 min break and then move on to:
two texts with 20 missing grammar and vocabulary elements, totaling 40 missing elements. for each missing element i am given four near synonyms or four grammatical homographs (give or take accents, spanish looks like preterite subjunctive is past perfect and future is a sort of future subjunctive or the other way round). that wasn’t all,
i am given a 40 multiple choice exercise in which 10 items are phrasal verbs and idioms, and 30 are straightforward grammar exercises. here as well the division is made down to:
5 items on the interplay of ser and estar verbs
3 items on sequence of tenses
3 items on por and para idioms
2 items on indefinite pronouns
5 items on phrasal verbs with pronominal objects
10 items on indicative vs subjunctive verbs
2 items on direct and indirect pronouns in their interaction
luckily, i will have sorted out these two paramount tasks in another 2h
then i am prompted to hear 3 texts twice each. the first one has true/false statements, the second multiple choice ones, and the third one for the love of God! open questions. I hate open questions in exams.
i am also given three sets of 4-image cartoons out of which i am to select one and tell it first in the first-person narrative and then in reported speech. like, woman sits and makes up, goes out, probably on date, car comes, washes her head to foot, she meets the man all wet and despondent.
last but not least, i am offered in the oral interview topics such as single parent families, ecology and tourism, natural resources and industrialization of the third world. nothing i can really relate to. then i am asked why i want(ed) to learn spanish and without any applauses, it’s all ended after 6 hours of looming hell.
i wanted to report also the kind of effort needed for one single piece of the exam, like, the vocabulary and grammar quiz.
i started out practicing vocabulary. from a pool of 200 multiple choice questions i ended up with 147 correct. statistically that’s what? 73% so barely enough to call it an overall success, provided i score similarly on the remaining topics.
then i went on with grammar, because that’s hideous.
i tried out ser and estar verb constructions and i managed to get 90 correct answers of 100. 90% then.
with sequence of tenses i am rather cool, so 48 correct out of 50, scoring therefore 96%.
i made a mess of por and para idioms, only 30 of 50, therefore 60%.
i regained my good spirits with indefinite pronouns, scoring 96% or 48 correct of 50.
went down the drain again with phrasals, since i only had 61 correct of 100, therefore a shameful 61%.
i didn’t get any better with indicative and subjunctive, lingering at 69% or 69 correct of 100.
sort of took up a bit with personal pronouns as direct and indirect objects, getting a mediocre 88%, with 44 correct of 50.
my point average for 850 multiple choice exercises is barely passable. i was initially aiming at a cool 99%, because rationally that’s where i am standing, but it only got me 87%. Which, in the task base means only 17.5 points out of 100 needed for my exam. i overcame my fear and disgust for multiple choice exercises, but to no avail. the only task from the exam that i was sort of ok with no longer was ok.
add to this the fact that it takes 3 months to get your exam results and this is why spanish exams are bloody hard.