In just under three weeks from today I should be sitting the Goethe Zertifikat B2 exam. Registration form emailed in and confirmed! I haven't been revving up in the way I was planning too, but I need to now!
I have finished Der Beobachter at least. In fact, I used the silly graph I posted last time to predict when I would finish it and that actually worked! It said I would finish on the 21st of this month, which is precisely what happened. Then again, when I got close to the date and I still had 30 pages to go, I picked up my pace. Anyway, good, I finished it - my first full novel in German, all 652 pages of it. I think that knowing I can enjoy a proper, normal, everyday sort of book gives me a confidence boost ahead of the exam. And besides, I really did enjoy it!
Since I got sick a few weeks ago, I haven't got back into my study as much as I need to. I had been using all my available lunchtimes to read Der Beobachter. Now I need to get back into the habit of doing some exam style questions for practice at lunchtime. Today I did manage to do some of the B2 practice exams - just the second part of the Schriftlicher Ausdruck section for two practice exams. This is the part where you need to correct the mistakes in a letter written by a non-native speaker (well, that's the scenario - I'm sure they're not real!!). You get 15 minutes in the real exam, and I took about 9-10 minutes for both of them. I got 10/10 for one and 9/10 for the other, so I feel pretty good about this part. Hence, I've decided to focus my "study time" on practising the writing section. I guess it would be too much to ask to get a computer to type my answers on, so I suppose I should practice writing my answers on paper. Sigh. I hate writing by hand in exams :-)
I have managed to read some more of my German grammar book, as well as doing one more lesson from Perfectionnement Allemand. In fact, I skipped lesson 19 in the end because it was just boring me too much (some bollocks about the history of the German and Austrian national anthems - in fact, I wanted to know about the topic, but the ratio of boredom to information was too high) so I moved on and did lesson 20. It's silly, but in a way that made it easy to get through. I actually feel that now I don't get as much out of Assimil at a higher level. I would get much more out of it if my French was better, but now that I can listen to and read more interesting things that aren't designed for learners, I often prefer to do just that. Still, the reason I went back to Assimil is because I haven't been getting the speaking practice I need, and even though it's not interactive, I have definitely always found it to be really good for getting the words to roll off the tongue. So, lesson 20 done, and review lesson 21 is also now complete.
So, anyway, better get on with it. I'll try to update more frequently as I make my final preparations.
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