tests

This week, I have had the indescribable pleasure of taking MASSES OF TESTS. None of these are graded, so it’s fine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t freak out. To be honest, the very fact that they’re not graded, there’s no list of things to learn, and I can’t prepare for them makes my mental state even more wacky. And by wacky I mean stressed.

Here’s a little glimpse of the pre-program hoops I’ve been jumping through:

• Reading. This test was 90 minutes long, and I used up the whole time. This is because there were 50 questions, and for every one or two questions there was a different section (1-4 paragraphs long) to read. Thankfully, the questions were in English.
• Listening. This test was 90 minutes long, and I did not use up the whole time. This is because there were 50 questions, and for every two questions there was an audio segment. But wait! you say. That sounds just like the reading! With the reading, if I didn’t understand on the first run-through or two, I could just read it again. Puzzle it out. But some of the listening sounded like the fine print on TV commercials for medicines. And if I didn’t get that right away, well…
• Oral Proficiency. MY GREATEST FEAR. I understood what my interviewer said most of the time, but my feeling about speaking was sort of like at the beginning of Advanced 1, where this happened:

Professor: Что вы делали прошлым летом?     (What did you do this summer?)
Molly, Tyler, Roman: [insert intelligent answers here]
Professor: А Лиза?                            (And Liza? –-that’s my Russian class name)
Me: …Видно, забыла ВСЁ.                         (Evidently, forgot EVERYTHING.)

• Intercultural Development. This seemed like a test I might have had to take as part of diversity week in Contemporary Topics freshman year. I was scared to begin, because (a) the instructions said I couldn’t use special characters (including basic punctuation), and there was a long answer section—but it turned out they were okay on long answer; and (b) my intercultural experience is really little, unless you count my “Evangelical Visits Catholic Disney World” experience of the last 2.5 years. I counted it. I hope I don’t get points off.

Basically, I’m sure I did okay… again, none of this was actually graded, except so that they can show us our numbers at the end of the semester after administering the same test, as a “look how far you’ve come!” But reading, listening, speaking, and adapting to cultural differences are all things I’m going to have to do this semester. Regularly. So now I am experiencing, full-force, PTSD (Post Test Stress Disorder).