Lately, I've been giving more thought to when to do the Goethe-Zertifikat B2. I originally said, quite boldly, that I would sit the exam in mid-July. That's almost 3 months ago.
So what happened?
Pretty simple really - I realised I just wasn't ready.
I didn't start regular speaking practice until just shortly before my target exam date. I did try to line up some speaking practice earlier which didn't pan out so well, but in recent times I've formed some good friendships which mean the practice is usually twice a week with two different groups of people (for 1 to 3 hours). Unfortunately, due to preparations for my daughter's 1st birthday on the weekend and a public holiday on Monday, I haven't had any speaking practice yet this week, though I expect to on Sunday to compensate a little. This has been really excellent preparation. In one of my weekly sessions, my language partner writes down words I don't know and some other useful information, which I later transfer into my Anki list. This is the same as what I do with words I don't know from Lesetraining B2. At the moment, I have a little catching up to do on both, but that's mainly because I've recently made faster progress than ever before in Lesetraining B2 (which isn't saying much) and I've finally finished Test 3 in the first part of the book (preparing for the exams). The main problem I have is still just vocab, vocab, vocab, and adding words that I didn't know pretty much straight away to my Anki list and really helped me hang on to those gains!
I've heard it said often that the jump between B1 and B2 is a really significant step in terms of understanding and vocabulary. For me, I still need to keep working on my vocab and recall (through regular use) and I'll hit this goal for certain.
I'll keep this policy of focusing on one type of study per week (not including listening to the news, science programs, etc as podcasts and meeting up with my German speaking friends) until I decide on a date for the exam at which time I'll probably mix it up more during the week. I'm focusing on Lesetraining B2 currently. I'll probably do that all of next week as well before just doing some grammar reading and drills for a few weeks.
One other reason I haven't decided exactly when I'll sit the exam is that I've got my fingers well and truly crossed in the hope of winning a competition being run by the Goethe Institut in Australia. The prize is a return flight to Berlin, a month's accomodation, and a month-long language course - winner's choice, of course! I am, obviously, not pinning all my hopes on this going my way, but I am hopeful :-) I'll make a sensible decision on timelines once the winner (hopefully me!) has been announced at the end of this month.
And sorry, entries are closed!
As for the second part of the title of this post, which exam to do, I am still planning on doing the Goethe-Zertifikat B2 because I think that's the level I can honestly achieve with the time and focus I can bring to the task. However, I just realised that the price for sitting the exam in Sydney is the same as sitting the Deutsch als Fremdsprache test, which gives a ranking (roughly speaking) from B2 to C1 level. It is also used, along with the result, as the basis for entry into numerous German University courses. Not that I have any use for that, and I also don't think I'll reach a level that far above B2 to make it worthwhile, but still... The price is the same, and the study would be pretty similar, so... Maybe...
Plenty to think about while I keep plugging away!
