Thursday, October 05, 2006
Maintenant, j'attends...
(Ahora, yo espero...)
So Wednesday I took my langauge exams in French and Spanish. The graduate program I'm in requires mastery in "two languages related to [my] area of research." Most people go with French and German. Since I do not know exactly what my area of research is, I decided to slam through those two first and deal with German later. After six years of Spanish and a rather intensive self-training in French, I figured I'd be ready for whatever they had to throw at me. Especially when I learned the general test format in advance: two passages, 45 minutes a piece. One with dictionary. One without. 90 minutes total
Before taking the exams, the passage which permitted dictionary use did not worry me. The one without seemed like it would be more difficult, especially if idiomatic language or the like were included.
After the fact, I'd say the opposite was true. The real problem was the dictionary section because to compensate for any advantage working with a lexicon may have provided, the professors made sure to pick works that used strange grammatical structures or were just insanely long.
But I finished both exams up on time, delivered them back to the secretary in the program office, and they will be in the professors' hot little hands come Friday afternoon. Eventually, they'll send an e-mail saying whether I failed or passed. If the former, I may sign up for a reading course next semester, but since they give the exams a month into the semester, I'm not sure what short term benefit that would provide. If I pass, then I get to plan my next move. (Ich liebe Deutsch!) Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing how long it will take for the results to be reported.
And so, for now I wait for the results. And so must you.
(Ahora, yo espero...)
So Wednesday I took my langauge exams in French and Spanish. The graduate program I'm in requires mastery in "two languages related to [my] area of research." Most people go with French and German. Since I do not know exactly what my area of research is, I decided to slam through those two first and deal with German later. After six years of Spanish and a rather intensive self-training in French, I figured I'd be ready for whatever they had to throw at me. Especially when I learned the general test format in advance: two passages, 45 minutes a piece. One with dictionary. One without. 90 minutes total
Before taking the exams, the passage which permitted dictionary use did not worry me. The one without seemed like it would be more difficult, especially if idiomatic language or the like were included.
After the fact, I'd say the opposite was true. The real problem was the dictionary section because to compensate for any advantage working with a lexicon may have provided, the professors made sure to pick works that used strange grammatical structures or were just insanely long.
But I finished both exams up on time, delivered them back to the secretary in the program office, and they will be in the professors' hot little hands come Friday afternoon. Eventually, they'll send an e-mail saying whether I failed or passed. If the former, I may sign up for a reading course next semester, but since they give the exams a month into the semester, I'm not sure what short term benefit that would provide. If I pass, then I get to plan my next move. (Ich liebe Deutsch!) Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing how long it will take for the results to be reported.
And so, for now I wait for the results. And so must you.
