Enough about the weather. So, as you (might) know, I signed up for the Cambridge ESOL exams for Proficiency and Advanced. There are three different levels: the First, the Advanced and the Proficiency as the highest one. My English teacher at my home college said I should be able to do the Advanced one and just skip the First and with professional help I could even manage the Proficiency. However, as I'm in sixth form all the time, I didn't have time for any preparation courses. I think they'd be about 23h a week. The tests are held every few months. I signed up for the ones in March, then they're held again in June and so on. I had the Proficiency exam last week on Friday and Saturday, so I can tell you a bit about it, but I haven't had my Advanced yet. That's this week on Wednesday and Saturday.
Here is the plan they gave me:
Date
|
Time
|
Paper
| |
08/03/2013
|
14:15 - 14:33
|
Speaking
| |
09/03/2013
|
09:00 - 10:30
|
Reading and Use of
English
| |
09/03/2013
|
10:50 - 12:20
|
Writing
| |
09/03/2013
|
12:50 - 13:30
|
Listening
|
All of them were in Clifton (the posh part of Bristol) and thankfully a friend of mine knows her way around as I had no idea. We went up to Clifton and found all the centres (and got Shakeaway;)). Then, on Friday, I had my speaking exam. The 'International House Bristol' is much smaller than I'd thought, but you can learn quite a lot of different languages.
I had to be there half an hour before the start of my exam, so I just sat around in the waiting room. Yeah, I'm one of those people who are early to being early:P. I was the youngest one by far, but then a gril came in and sat down next to me and I could see her Swiss passport so we started talking. She was from eastern Switzerland so we thankfully spoke English;) (interesting dialect, you know). She's nineteen and just finished college in Switzerland. We were put in pairs - we got to do the test together!:D. We kept talking until the exam began, which I think made it a lot easier. We had to speak to a woman for 18 mins with a marking person in the room. First, we had to introduce ourselves, then she asked us questions individually and the other person had to comment on what the other one responded. Our conversation was based on fashion and its image. Then we were given 8 pictures (in our case pictures of different jobs) and had to talk about their value in society and think of two other jobs. That was basically it. The examiner was really lovely and she always explained everything and told us how much time we'd have for each test. I'm not going to lie, I was really nervous while being on the bus to Clifton but knowing my partner a bit better calmed me down and I really wasn't very nervous during the actual exam. I'm not sure it was enough though :P. I don't want to jinx it. It seems hard to actually show of your English abilities while talking about topics like fashion and jobs..
The other Swiss girl, Debby, and I found out we were living in the same neighbourhood, so we exchanged numbers and took the same bus the next morning. It was nice to have someone:). We were twelve people to take the test. There were four Swiss people all together - I've never seen as many Swiss people since I've come here! And yes, I was the youngest of everyone, but oh well. I think most of them were 20-30 years old. It seems as though they all did a language course over here. Most of them left on the same weekend to go home or in a few weeks. They were only here for two months at the longest. And they mostly all did another English exam before that (on the test you had to tick any you already did, and there wasn't a 'none', so I felt very unprepared :P. One of the Swiss guys, Nick from Zürich, he told me he did the First and then the Advanced in Switzerland and it was very different than it was to do the Proficiency here. He said there were about 15 examiners watching them during the tests and it was all very formal and they stored all the mobile phones in separate pouches. Compared to that, it was very chilled here. The writing exams were held in the back of a church in Clifton and there weren't many rules. We just had to leave our bags in the hallway and were only allowed a water bottle.
The 'Use of English' was by far the hardest one. To be honest, it doesn't seem very reliable to me. It's mostly about interpretation...
'Writing' was doing a summary and evaluation on two small paragraphs (on the term 'talent') and then an essay on a chosen topic (there were about five categories to choose from.. even a book review on a book I've never heard of). The 'Listening' was only about 40mins but not really straightforward either.
What I really disliked were the answer sheets... you know, the ones you have to colour in A B or C. I think it's simply a waste of time to transfer your answers to a separate sheet..
Afterwards, Debby and I went to AngelBerry , a frozen yogurt place :D. It was lovely to meet some more exchange students although most of them already went home now.
If you've never heard of the Cambridge exams, check it out here . There are test which tell you which test would fit you best:). There's nothing to loose, except for time and money (£124 for the Proficiency and £118 for the Advanced), but that's what it's about ;).
Have a nice week x
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