The EXAM

It all went as expected mostly. There were a few questions that I know I got wrong because afterwards I remembered the right answer - invariably it was something really stupid that I know very well and just stuffed up for fun. The kanji questions can be like that because it's multiple choice and the question will be asking you fill in the appropriate kanji for a word and the choices will all be extremely similar, maybe only 1 or 2 strokes different which can make you think twice. And think twice I did. But the listening part was so easy. There was only one question that I wasn't absolutely positive about so that gave me a bit of a boost heading into the grammar and reading section. That is the last and worst portion of the exam. It goes for an hour or so and I always run out of time. This time I went to the back and did the short sentence questions first and left the big reading comprehension ones for last. It really was just speed reading by the end. Actually the content of the comprehension passage was heaps interesting and I spent too long trying to understand every work because I was enjoying reading it! Oops. It was all about how to nap effectively. Apparently if you are going to nap and wake up feeling refreshed you should either take short 20 minute naps so you wake before you fall into heavy sleep, or you should sleep for just under 2 hours so you go through the first 90 minute sleep stage where your brain is shutting down and then give it 20 minutes or so of just resting so you wake up feeling better rather than more sleepy. But if you don't have time to nap you can just close your eyes for a few minutes because using your eyes works your brain very hard so just closing them gives your noggin a bit of a rest! Who wouldn't be interested in how to get more rest?

There were many people there, hundreds. I was surprised because the test in Adelaide had only about 30 people rock up. There were 60 people per room and about 20 or so rooms full up. Mostly they were Chinese, but a few westerners like me. After the first section, kanji and vocab, the staff who were in our room were mucking around for ages and couldn't add up the answer sheets properly so we couldn't leave the room until it was already too late to go out and get any fresh air which was a bit shit. A lot of people were complaining loudly about this. Personally I think they gave us too much time between the sections anyway. The exam started at 9:15, but the first 15 minutes of each section was spent listening to the same thing over and over about the warning system, what constitutes cheating and what to do if this, or if that... I didn't get out until 3pm! They gave us an hour break for lunch too. I would have preferred to just keep going until it was all over and then I could have had the rest of the day to myself. As it was I didn't get home until after 5 and that was the end of my weekend. Results don't come out until late February so I am in for a long wait to see how I went. Hopefully the good listening marks will make up for the bad kanji and vocab marks and I can make the 60% I need to pass!

Thanks to those who sent me goodluck for the big event!