rlnv wrote:I hope you get the marks you're estimating, and good luck on the oral tomorrow! As a person that drinks a lot of water, I can completely relate to your story, as a matter of fact something similar happened to me at the dentist today.
When you get a chance, can you give a bit more detail on the writing section? Topic, time allotted, and whatnot.
Thanks rlnv!
Yeah I hope i'm actually totally wrong and do a lot better than I think, but getting the marks as per my estimations wouldn't be so bad. Thanks for the 'good luck'.
On that topic, my interpretation of 'good luck' with relation to such things as exams, imo, doesn't literally mean that it's all down to luck. I think it's a figure of speech which happens to make use of the word 'luck', which more or less means, "do you best, i hope you do really well"
As for the writing-
After the initial 30 minutes allocated for the listening component, you are given the remaining 2 hours to complete both the reading and the written components. The teacher advised that we use one hour for each, but it is up to our own discretion in terms of how to divide that time.
I aimed for 1 hr and 1 hr, but ended up using more time to go back over my listening section answers (there's nothing stopping you from doing so, evidently you can use your time however you please, but of course you cannot hear the audio again). Therefore I was probably left with 1hr 50 in total for the reading and writing sections (oh and that rediculous toilet break cut a few minutes more out of my overall time). Subsequently I estimate I used roughly 1 hr of that time for the reading section (2 articles with a bunch of questions, i think about 12 from memory for each), then used ~50 minutes for the writing (I felt a little more confident with that).
Thus, ideally you are meant to have an hour for the writing. I didn't, but that's fine, I spent more time on things I was suffering to find answers for (listening component, and the reading just took longer to get it all done despite working quickly, for me that is).
So the written component was a question somewhere along the lines of:
You're a resident in a small French town and live between a kindergarten and a retirement home. You write a letter to the mayor suggesting to him/her that he allow the residents of the retirement home to read stories to the children of the kindergarten. In your letter you are to outline your plan for the reading to the mayor, telling him/her why it would be beneficial.
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In some ways I've wondered since writing my response earlier today during the exam, that maybe I misinterpreted the question and instead of trying to convince the mayor of all the benefits i should've spoken more about the plan itself. Perhaps I did construct my writing incorrectly, perhaps I didn't. Time will tell. What will be will be now.
For anyone considering sitting the B2 I highly recommend preparatory materials and using a tutor. For me personally, and more generally, listening skills are neglected more often than not, and I'd advise particular attention to this component if you suspect you could improve. For me it's the one section in which one could potentially do worse than what your ability should demonstrate, since extracting sometimes subtle nuanced ideas or notions from a piece of audio, to me goes beyond just listening and understanding. You must listen, comprehend words, comprehend the overall meaning, follow the nuances, possibly retain dates, numbers, names figures and other things and then reproduce it all in multiple choice and short written answers. Your listening ability really has to be on point! I thought I'd be ok, but as explained I didn't do very well I suspect.
From a tutor's perspective, I was told that the writing section often poses unexpected difficulties for students. They misinterpret the question/topic, don't know how to construct a particular writing piece relevant to the intended audience (i.e. correct register and correct forms of address and how to end the letter for example), and underestimate their writing abilities. Practise here with one excellent tutor helped for me, but I think for the most part I was ok with this section.
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Edit: Before I forget I may as well mention what the 2 articles in the reading section were about. The first was about 'jardins partagés' springing up around Paris, which discussed some variations on the theme, some more legal than others, the benefits, trends, organisations and so on.
The second article was one journalist's take on the use of private cars and how he felt they should be in due time a thing a relic of the past due to pollution, poor use of space, sedentry lifestyles (ie encourage bikes, walking also) etc. He advocated big improvements to public transport, more pedestrian and cylce paths linking to public transport routes and eliminating cars wherever realistically possible depending on each region.
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Another edit:
I want to write about it while it's a little fresh. The first (longer) listening component was about video games in companies for training (eg simulating dangerous environments), skill improvement and perhaps eventually spotting certain skills among employees that may be good in future management. Dry topic for me.
The 2nd audio clip I'm honestly struggling to remember it now. Ah yes! It was about gaining access to the knowledge that natives have in the amazon basin who have been able to heal themselves of illnesses without access to western medecine. The idea was to gain access to this to help a wider population before this knowledge is lost (deforestation, displaced natives).