Placement Test

Well today was the day of the dreaded placement test which places you into a certain level according to your French skills. I'll I have to say is that it was dreaded for a reason. We were told that we would start with the listening/writing section which was good so we good practice for the oral section. I should have known that the test was going to be ridiculous when I said that the test wouldn't be that bad and then all of the lights in the room went out. It was just destined to go down-hill from there.

We actually had to do the oral part first. I was not the first to go so I was able to hear the kind of questions that were being asked and they weren't that bad. Such as where has your family done on vacation? do you like to dance? Well it's finally my turn and I am thinking okay I can do this and then she asks me why I am studying French. So I say because it's a diplomatic language and I want to be a diplomat which she then counters with why. Which sends me stumbling around trying to think not only in English but in French as well. After narrowly avoiding catastrophe with that she then asks me what I find interesting on the news lately. Well since all of the news here in France is in French I can't understand half of it so I haven't been watching it. Basically the only thing I know is the crisis between Israel and Palestine. So I say that. BAD IDEA! She then asks why it interests me so then I had to come up with something which took a while yet again. So here I am trying to explain the Israel and Palestine conflict in another language while it is confusing enough in my native language. Basically it sucked. I have no idea why I got all of the hard questions while others got asked what countries they know.

At least it is over now so I won't be stressing about it over the weekend.