Blah, I've been back less than a week and I've already taken today off ... well it was just reading class, and I suppose I can do the catchup at home; I've moved myself permanently into Intermediate Group 1, which is still (I think) slightly larger than IG2, but (I'm guessing) more productive! The listening work is pretty simple (I think not only has my listening improved, not only is the audio quality a LOT better, but the stuff we are listening to is just EASIER) - I wonder how long this will last, the rest of the class isn't complaining just yet, but their Chinese is better than mine and they must surely be as bored with it as I am (last semester I was bored because I didn't understand enough despite three attempts at listening, now I am bored because I understand 95% of the tapes first time round), plus the teacher takes the lessons really slowly, she doesn't seem to grasp that the material is simple and our Chinese is actually alright by now. *SIGH* ... she also asked a very dunce question of me:
(going round checking people had been noting down words' meanings in their own languages)
her: oh good, good, you looked it up, good. oh, harry, did you look this stuff up? (there is no writing in my book you see)
me: er, sorry? (I didn't understand the word for looking things up, maybe I had forgotten it)
her: did you look these up?
me: "look up"? I don't understand (obviously this was in Chinese)
(she goes to explain it. someone shouts out "did you use a dictionary")
me: *perplexed and a little annoyed that the teacher can be so dense* but the words are given in ENGLISH! i AM English!
her: oh so you understand them all, ah yes i see.
GRAH! WHAT THE HELL?
Apart from that, classes seem to be okay. Chinese people this week have suddenly decided they must ask me "Are you American?", instead of asking where I come from. This invariably results in me telling them exactly where they can go. It's not so much that I mind being called American, it's more that they have the gall to just assume; I don't go around asking if they are Tajiks or Uzbeks for heaven's sake. Another thing that will not score you points is going "WHISSS WHISS" at me in an attempt to get my attention - I am not you dog, you backwards bastards. [The latter happens mainly in markets, not school, though I wouldn't be surprised if next week they all decided that was a decent way to act.]
Oh and in happy-making news, I got my exam results for last semester:
Grammar - 77
Listening and Speaking - 78
Reading - 84
I'm not sure how I pulled off the listening and speaking mark either! Those are all percentages, so they need to be multiplied by 0.85 for conversion to Newcastle's scale, which gives me 65.45, 66.3, and 71.4, a combined conversion of 67.7, not bad considering I swapped to IG1 briefly before the exams but took IG2's exam because I didn't think I would be able to pass IG1 at that time, and didn't revise very well for the IG2 exam anyway :) Makes me think with a bit of effort this semester I might be able to achieve something!
So there you go, I'm back into uni, life continues, oh and it's just 137 days until I leave China. Woop!
Showing posts with label exams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exams. Show all posts
Friday, 6 March 2009
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Exams
See below this post for another post I only just uploaded (can't have the praise for my Mum go unnoticed!). Yesterday marked the start of my exam season, and today marked the end. Yes, just two days. Argh. Last week I was supposed to revise myself silly but I just couldn't find the motivation and ended up doing not as much as I'd hoped. This led to lastminute cramming, and a bit of worrying, but ... that's my own fault. So how were they?
Listening - awful. My worst area by far. I barely heard some of the dialogues, and just guessed most of the answers. I'll be lucky if I got even 20% correct. I wish they'd give us individual tapes, I might stand more of a chance then. Incidentally, anyone in first or second year at Newcastle care to comment on whether or not they've started to do that back home? We complained about it last year, European language students all get that opportunity, why should we be made to sit in a big room and listen to one tape at the front which is played just twice when other students get to play it as many times as they want in their time limit? Hmm.
Speaking - considering I didn't have a clue what was going to happen, I think I did alright. You choose a sheet (without seeing the content, there are 2 to choose from) and then have a few minutes to prepare. Unlike the UK though, you are preparing in the same room as other candidates who are taking the exam. It's annoying, but that's how it is so deal with it. First you have to read a passage, then answer questions on the passage. The third part involves completing sentences using the stuff provided in brackets as a guide. And the final bit is 4 questions, you choose one and just launch into an answer. I don't know if it was recorded, there was the teacher's phone on the desk but I'm guessing that was in case she got a call and not because she wanted to record my answers, but on a related note, it would help if the teacher showed some INTEREST in the student while they are being examined and didnt just look at her lap when the bumbling English idiot stumbles over some words in the passage. Still, I think it went better than Listening by far.
Last night I slept for about 4 hours. This was nowhere near enough (not my fault per se, I just couldn't sleep it was infuriating), so today's exams were tedious. Not SO hard, but tiring and an irritation to say the least.
Grammar - three or four sides, lots of questions, just hammer through and answer them. Based on the books you've been using all along, so just hope stuff you looked at comes up and you can make educated guesses at the stuff you don't know!
Reading - as with grammar, and much the same; really you either know something or you don't. It's all in your books. I was lucky enough to have skimmed over a couple of passages this afternoon which came up in the exam. Without them I don't know if I would even have known what the passages were about. Real planning would have been to actually revise all the (MANY) passages we looked at. Ah well, I got lucky, hurray for me.
So exams are over, and I'm monstrously tired. But before I complete this post, a word on taking exams in XNU. It's a disgrace. I know this doesnt happen with the Chinese students, because they are behaved, and their teachers come down on them like a ton of bricks if they step out of line, but with all these foreign bastards, it's a joke. Whispering and casual glancing at papers is rife, as are stupid childish antics that I would expect from a 13 year old trying to be the "cool kid" and not a 27 year old mother-of-three (so I am told) ... Guys came in almost an hour late. Lucky for them the exam was 2 hours long and the paper was short enough that it could be completed in under an hour with ease. At one point I saw this imbecile sitting in front of me turned round about 170 degrees just looking at my paper. I glanced up, gave him a look, and told him (verbatim) to "fuck off", before folding my paper up and hiding my answers from his nosy gaze. Some of the teachers are just as bad, either they'll not tell people off immediately for talking, or they'll just walk over to someone and then give them an "alright-I-caught-you-using-your-electronic-dictionary-so-just-stop-using-it" nod and it's like some huge joke to the student. The uni must be seriously hung up on getting these foreigners' cash because in the UK it doesnt matter where you come from or who you are, if you're cheating (even a bit) there's a disciplinary procedure and you can fail the module or even be asked (read told) to leave the uni.
No wonder people don't trust some Asian countries' exam certificates. It's an absolute joke.
Listening - awful. My worst area by far. I barely heard some of the dialogues, and just guessed most of the answers. I'll be lucky if I got even 20% correct. I wish they'd give us individual tapes, I might stand more of a chance then. Incidentally, anyone in first or second year at Newcastle care to comment on whether or not they've started to do that back home? We complained about it last year, European language students all get that opportunity, why should we be made to sit in a big room and listen to one tape at the front which is played just twice when other students get to play it as many times as they want in their time limit? Hmm.
Speaking - considering I didn't have a clue what was going to happen, I think I did alright. You choose a sheet (without seeing the content, there are 2 to choose from) and then have a few minutes to prepare. Unlike the UK though, you are preparing in the same room as other candidates who are taking the exam. It's annoying, but that's how it is so deal with it. First you have to read a passage, then answer questions on the passage. The third part involves completing sentences using the stuff provided in brackets as a guide. And the final bit is 4 questions, you choose one and just launch into an answer. I don't know if it was recorded, there was the teacher's phone on the desk but I'm guessing that was in case she got a call and not because she wanted to record my answers, but on a related note, it would help if the teacher showed some INTEREST in the student while they are being examined and didnt just look at her lap when the bumbling English idiot stumbles over some words in the passage. Still, I think it went better than Listening by far.
Last night I slept for about 4 hours. This was nowhere near enough (not my fault per se, I just couldn't sleep it was infuriating), so today's exams were tedious. Not SO hard, but tiring and an irritation to say the least.
Grammar - three or four sides, lots of questions, just hammer through and answer them. Based on the books you've been using all along, so just hope stuff you looked at comes up and you can make educated guesses at the stuff you don't know!
Reading - as with grammar, and much the same; really you either know something or you don't. It's all in your books. I was lucky enough to have skimmed over a couple of passages this afternoon which came up in the exam. Without them I don't know if I would even have known what the passages were about. Real planning would have been to actually revise all the (MANY) passages we looked at. Ah well, I got lucky, hurray for me.
So exams are over, and I'm monstrously tired. But before I complete this post, a word on taking exams in XNU. It's a disgrace. I know this doesnt happen with the Chinese students, because they are behaved, and their teachers come down on them like a ton of bricks if they step out of line, but with all these foreign bastards, it's a joke. Whispering and casual glancing at papers is rife, as are stupid childish antics that I would expect from a 13 year old trying to be the "cool kid" and not a 27 year old mother-of-three (so I am told) ... Guys came in almost an hour late. Lucky for them the exam was 2 hours long and the paper was short enough that it could be completed in under an hour with ease. At one point I saw this imbecile sitting in front of me turned round about 170 degrees just looking at my paper. I glanced up, gave him a look, and told him (verbatim) to "fuck off", before folding my paper up and hiding my answers from his nosy gaze. Some of the teachers are just as bad, either they'll not tell people off immediately for talking, or they'll just walk over to someone and then give them an "alright-I-caught-you-using-your-electronic-dictionary-so-just-stop-using-it" nod and it's like some huge joke to the student. The uni must be seriously hung up on getting these foreigners' cash because in the UK it doesnt matter where you come from or who you are, if you're cheating (even a bit) there's a disciplinary procedure and you can fail the module or even be asked (read told) to leave the uni.
No wonder people don't trust some Asian countries' exam certificates. It's an absolute joke.
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