Prohairesis' Log : C2 German by 2019

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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby schlaraffenland » Mon May 29, 2017 8:48 pm

Ich wünsche dir viel Glück und drück dir die Daumen!
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Tue May 30, 2017 10:55 pm

Heute habe ich einen C1-Modellsatz überfliegend durchgelesen und den festgestellt, dass die C1-Prüfung viel anspruchsvoller als zunächst gedacht ist. Bei Analysen meiner Ergebnissen der B1- und der B2-Prüfungen zeichnet sich eine deutliche Tendenz ab: in beiden Fällen habe ich weniger Punkten vom Hörverstehen und Sprechen erhalten. Mir ist dann meine Arbeit in den nächsten Tagen jetzt zugeteilt. Das Wichtige ist, mich auf Hörverstehen und Sprechen zu konzentrieren.

C1 Hörverstehen
Dieser Teil besteht aus 2 Aufgaben.
Teil 1 - Stichworte notieren (einmal den Text hören) / 10 Pktn.
Teil 2 - Multiple-Choice (zweimal den Text hören) / 15 Pktn.

Zum Training des ersten Teiles werde ich Podcasts zu verschieden Themen hören und gleichzeitig frei Notizen machen. Ich fange schon mit DW an. DW ist eine sehr gute Nachrichtenquelle, womit ich vielen Übungen zum Hörverstehen mit langsam gesprochenen Nachrichten sowie im Originaltempo arbeiten kann. Der Zweck von Notizen ohne Orientierungspunkte ist, nur wichtige Informationen zu wählen, damit der Prozess mir zur zweiten Natur wird. Um alle wichtige Informationen zu kontrollieren, werde ich den Text langsam gesprochen noch einmal hören. Mein Ziel wäre, mit der Zeit weniger abhängig vom langsam gesprochenen Hörtext zu werden.

Danach werde ich alle die drei Modellprüfungen aus dem Buch Mit Erfolg zum Goethe-Zertifikat C1 machen.

C1 Sprechen
Der mündlicher Teil besteht aus 2 Aufgaben
Teil 1 - einen 3-minütigen Vortrag zu einem Thema ausführen / 12,5 Pktn.
Teil 2 - Gespräch über eine bestimmten Situation mit seinem Partner / 12,5 Pktn.

Die beiden Teilen sind eben bewertet. Und mit 15 Minuten zur Vorbereitung für 10 Minuten Ausführung muss ich klar eine gute Strategie von Zeitmanagement annehmen. Das bedeutet, nicht mehr als 7 Minuten für jeden Teil. Ein großes Problem für mich ist, ich hab' niemanden, mit wem ich mich kontrollieren lassen kann und die mündliche Aufgaben arbeite. Zwar besuche ich zurzeit einen B2-Kurs in Bangkok, aber derselbe Kurs sich meistens nur auf Grammatikübungen fokussiert. Deswegen muss ich Alternativen suchen.

Sonst würde ich den Vortrag alleine bearbeiten und den reste auf das Beste hoffen... :?

Beim Schreiben ist alles ganz klar. Ich werde alle zwei Tagen einen Text zum Korrigieren schreiben. Mein Lehrer am Goethe-Institut Bangkok könnte dann mir Vorschläge zur Verbesserung geben. Beim Lesen werde ich mindestens 25 Seite pro Tag bezwecken und dabei mir neue Wörter merken.
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Kotiro » Wed May 31, 2017 6:29 am

Viel Erfolg!! Ich möchte auch eventuell das Niveau C1 erreichen, obwohl ich vielleicht keine Prüfung machen muss. Following! :mrgreen:
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Wed May 31, 2017 2:51 pm

In the interest of making my log entries more accessible to read by the general public, I have decided to post my entries in English from now on. Which means I will really have to compensate for my writing effort in some other way !

So picking up from yesterday, where I decided to focus on the listening and speaking components of the C1 Zertifikat, today I have instead focused on the reading component.

As some of you may already know, the reading component is one of the harder parts of the exam. This is mainly due to the lengthy and often challenging texts to be read and understood in detail. Also, working through the texts, you quickly realize that in order to find the answer you're looking for quickly and efficiently, you have to really understand the text pretty well because the questions do not necessarily follow the texts' sequence of content. To compound the difficulty, you only have 70 minutes to complete three of the following tasks :

Leseverstehen

Teil 1 - Read a 400- to 500-word article about a scientific topic and fill out the missing words in a summarized version of the article. 10 points available.
Teil 2 - Read four testimonies from four different people about a given topic and paraphrase up to three answers for each of the 5 given statements. The catch is you cannot have more than 10 answers altogether. 10 points available.
Teil 3 - Read text and fill in the missing word from a choice of 4 answers for each question. 5 points available.

Today I only had the time to do Teil 1 and Teil 2, and scored 6/10 and 7/10 respectively. Each part possesses its down difficulties, but what they have in common is that you really have to execute several tasks simultaneously.

Teil 1

The difficulty with Teil 1 is that you have a full-length article whose content is ordered in a one sequence, but in the summarized version, the sequence was very different. This really messed with my head because you somewhat expect the summarized version to follow the same order, and that definitely would have made the process of filling out the missing words much easier. The second difficulty with Teil 1 is that every now and then you have to reformulate your answer with another word or a synonym that is not the same as the one in the original text in order for you answer to grammatically fit. As an example, the article in front of the gap (where the answer's supposed to be) may be different from the article of the original word in the original text, so you have to come up with a different word but with the same meaning.

All that said, my first attempt at this exercise has given me ideas for improving my score the next time round. To begin with, I should make it more of a habit to underline key words common to both the original text and the summary. This will help me situate the answer I'm looking for in the original text approximately. Second, I should pay more attention to the grammar around the gap where my answer should be, as this may help me look for the answer with the corresponding grammatical specificity. Third, I should read through the summary as I fill it out with my answers. The 'flow' of the text may help me think up a good answer if I'm really stuck.

Teil 2

The difficulty with Teil 2 is that for each of the four small texts you read, you have to consider whether there are elements within the text that correspond to up to three of the given five statements. The really heartbreaking thing about this exercise is that if you don't come up with 10 answers, you lose a point for each unwritten answer.

With 7/10, I would say I did reasonably well for a first attempt. One of the things that hindered the quality of my answers was that I had to reformulate them so that they fit the box. In some cases, the answer span between two and three sentences, and so it is necessary to know how to make my answers succinct. I will have a go at exercises for Nominalisierung von Verben (transforming verb-led phrases into noun-led phrases).

My first attempt at the reading section did not produce spectacular results. But I believe to have gained more insight into improving my score for the next time than the number of scores I lost this time - which may prove to be invaluable in the long run.
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Sun Jun 04, 2017 6:31 am

Since my last log entry, I have completed the following tasks:

1. Third part of the Leseverstehen, for which I scored 4/5.
2. Listening comprehension practice through the DW Top Themas audio-training program.
3. Writing a sample Aufsatz for the first part of schriftlicher Ausdruck for my teacher from the Goethe-Institut to correct.

Leseverstehen: Teil 3
I must say, this part went a lot better than the first two parts (for which I scored 6/10 and 7/10 respectively). The Aufgabe is choosing the right word from a choice of four answers for each question to complete the sentence in the corresponding text. This exercise really put my knowledge of prepositions, Verweiswörter and Konnekturen to the test. Some of the questions had more to do with choosing the correct corresponding word, for which I therefore relied upon my Sprachgefühl. Like the first two exercises, the trick was really to look for the clues and to read the text carefully. If the question asks for the correct preposition, then I need to know which one goes with with word in the text. The rest is such a matter of eliminating false answers.

So my combined score for all three Aufgaben in the reading comprehension part is 17/25, which is not bad for a first try.

Listening comprehension with DW
I didn't spend much time on this, though I really should. Listening comprehension being one of my weaknesses, I need to become more comfortable with people speaking really fast. I imagine at the C1 Niveau, playing langsam gesprochene Nachrichten is no longer an option. Judging from the number of correct answers I scored from the mini DW-quiz, I would say I'm doing pretty well.

My goal for the coming week is to focus more on Hörverstehen and to try out a couple of exam practice exercises. Progress update to follow on this front.

Practice schriftlicher Ausdruck
Now, for this particular exercise, I allowed myself to be more lenient and made it into a timed, open-book test. One of the biggest difficulties I encountered from the outset was knowing what to write and how. My range of vocabulary is not very extensive, but I found the French technique of périphrase to be very useful here : if I cannot find the word, then define it with a longer phrase. The great thing with German is that you can form compound words, so I managed to get away with it.

Out of the two given topics, I chose one about children's dream jobs and how boys and girls, depending on their respective gender roles, realize their dreams with varying degrees of success. Prior to having a go at a practice question, I had read a fair bit about the expected structure of the essay in the hopes of forming a "template" in my head and to save as much time as possible for the writing itself. After consulting various preparatory material, I have come to the conclusion that the standard template should be as follows :

1. Einleitung und Beschreibung der Statistik
2. Inhaltspunkt 1
3. Inhaltspunkt 2
4. Situation in meinem Heimatland (Inhaltspunkt 3)
5. Inhaltspunkt 4 und Schluss

As I wrote the Aufsatz, I also allowed myself, just this once, to consult the Redemittel, especially those proven to be useful for describing statistical data and numbers.

In the end, I managed to write 383 words, which is well above the minimum 200 words required. But the final score for my writing also depends on the correctness of my language, vocabulary range and variety of different sentence construction. I plan to submit my text for correction by my current teacher at the local Goethe-Institut, who will then score it out of 20. More to update on this front.

With two weeks left before the big day, my plan for the penultimate week is to write two/three more practice essays, as well as to work on my Hörverstehen with practice exam tapes and questions.
Last edited by Prohairesis on Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:02 am

In case some of you were wondering, below is the text I wrote as part of my first attempt at the Schriftlicher Ausdruck:

Schriftliches Ausdruckstraining 1

Mein Aufsatz ist „Wunschberufe von Kindern und Jugendlichen“. Ob Geschlechtsunterschiede die Möglichkeiten zur Erfüllung der Berufwünsche beeinflussen, darum geht es in diesem Aufsatz.

Die vorliegenden statistischen Informationen über Traumberufe von 8- bis 19 Jährigen sagen aus, dass ein großer Anteil der Mädchen von Berufe aus dem Pflegebereich träumen. 7,1% der Umfrageteilnehmerinnen wünschen sich Tierärztin und sie sind weniger (5,4%), sich Lehrerinnen vorzustellen. Im Vergleich zu Jungen lässt es sich eine deutliche Tendenz erkennen: Jungen träumen nicht von Berufe aus dem Pflegebereich, sondern von arbeitsaufwendigen technischen Berufen. Die Mehrheit der Jungen wünschen sich Mechatroniker (9,7%), 7,8% von ihnen streben nach handwerklichen Berufen, und ein kleinerer Anteil von ihnen (6,1%) vorstellen sich Ingenieur.

Die Gründe sind meiner Meinung nach Folgende: obwohl die heutigen Jungen und Mädchen in dieselbe Schule gehen, erfahren die beide je ein bestimmtes soziales Umfeld und werden je durch unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Erwartungen geprägt.

In der Schule werden den Jungen und den Mädchen viele geschlechtsbestimmenden Aktivitäten gebietet. Aufgrund ihrer körperlichen Stärke treiben die Jungen sportlichen Aktivitäten, wie Fußball. Im Zeitablauf suchen Jungen entsprechenden Traumberufen, bei denen sie ihre entwickelnde körperliche Stärke benutzen können. Den Mädchen werden „weiblichen Aktivitäten“ gebietet: Theaterspiel, Kunst, usw. Nach und nach suchen sie ein kreatives soziales Ventil für diese Aktivitäten und werden durch die Pflegens- und Erziehungsbereiche leichter geprägt.

In meinem Heimatland Thailand träumen die junge Leute immer mehr von ähnlichen Berufen. Im Gegensatz zu Deutschland ist Thailand keinerlei für seine Technik bekannt, sondern für den Dienstleistungsbereich. Immer mehr Frauen und Männer studieren deshalb Wirtschaftskommunikation und stellen sich Kauffrauen und Kaufmänner vor.

Und trotz einer verbessernden Geschlechterparität gibt es allerdings einen großen Unterschied zwischen Traumberufe und die Möglichkeiten zur Erfüllung im Erwachsenenalter. Leider gehört Thailand immer noch zu den Ländern, wo Männer viel mehr Gelegenheiten als Frauen erhalten. In Deutschland und in anderen entwickelten Ländern ist die Situation anders. Die Globalisierung macht so, dass die Leute, egal ob Mann oder Frau, viel mehr Konkurrenz gegeneinander erleben. Weil es viel mehr Angebote als die Nachfrage gibt, werden die Möglichkeiten immer weniger, sein Traumberuf zu bekommen.

Die Tatsache ist, ob Jungen oder Mädchen mehr Chance haben, ihre Berufswünsche zu erfüllen, ist nicht mehr hier die Frage. Die Zeiten haben sich geändert. Und wenn ein Mädchen ihren Traumberuf nicht realisiert, hat das nichts mit ihrem Geschlecht zu tun, sondern mit beruflichen Qualifikationen.


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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:20 pm

Today I did a practice exam paper for the Leseverstehen and the Hörverstehen parts of the C1-Prüfung. Results are as follows:

1. Leseverstehen: 12.5/25
2. Hörverstehen: 18/25

Leseverstehen

Let's deal with the Leseverstehen first. Now I managed my time pretty badly for this part. Halfway through finding 6 out of the 10 answers for the second part of the reading component, I suddenly realized that I only had 9 minutes left to do the third Aufgabe. I ended up scoring very low for all three parts, but each for different reasons.

In the first part, the time pressure hadn't gotten to me so quickly so I spent longer than I should have filling in the missing words in the Zusammenfassungstext. To my surprise, I only scored 5 out of 10 for this part and the surprise was all the greater since the mistakes I made were pretty silly to begin with. It was only through this particular exercise that I discovered my weakness: I'm not good with finding synonyms !

The thing is, my reading technique was pretty good and I highlighted all the keywords in the original text and put next to the margin a little number matching the question number in the summarized text to find my way around where the answer is or should be. And all that in vain ! One particular question had me wondering if I would have ever found the right answer.

The word I had to fill out was part of the following sentence : „Dass darin auch Personen sitzen, die an keine hochschulpolitischen Weisungen ___________ sind, stößt bei der Gewerkschaft auf besondere Kritik.“

For this particular question, I found the most relevant word (from the text) to be "verantwortlich". I was surprised to eventually find out that the answer was "gebunden", and the Lösungsschlüssel explains that "an eine Weisung gebunden sein" is a set phrase (fester Ausdruck), and that it simply cannot be otherwise. At this point, I think it would be a good idea for me to review Nomen-Verben-Verbindungen (N-V-V). I've got my hands on the Grammatik für die Oberstufe, and will start working through the relevant passages tomorrow.

For the second part, as far as the 6 answers I wrote down are concerned, I got them all correct. So I really need to allot more time for this exercise in order to give all 10 answers. I scored 6/10 for this part.

As for the third part, I have surmised that it really depends on the kind of text I get. Depending on the text difficulty, the corresponding register and choice of words will also vary. For this particular exercises, I landed on a pretty difficult text, and given the time constraints (I only had 9 minutes left to answer the 10 questions), I became more careless and made mistakes I shouldn't have.

12.5/25 is indeed far from a good score, and I hope to incorporate the mistakes I have learned from this practice test to perform better during the next round.

Hörverstehen

I was generally happy with the tempo and I didn't find it to be particularly difficult. The first part of the test was a 5-minute telephone conversation and you only get to listen to it once. But the topic was relatively simple and so I scored 9/10 for this part.

The second part is where it gets trickier. Here, the audio was 12 minutes long and it was about the intricate workings of memory and the human brain. You do get to hear the recording twice, and the second time in separate bits. I scored 9/15 for this part, and most of my incorrect answers are due to tricky questions where keywords that appear in the all the multiple choices are also mentioned in the audio. With this particular exercise, I really think I just need to practice some more and listen attentively to radio programmes.

Other noteworthy updates

Today, I handed in my written exercise from two days ago and my teacher from the Goethe-Institut and he should, in theory, have it corrected by tomorrow. I will let you guys know what score he gave me :D In the meantime, it seems like I am generally becoming better-prepared for this exam. My greatest concern now is the Mündlicher Ausdruck, mainly because I don't have anyone to rate my speaking skills.

If any of you has had experience with the C1-Prüfung, I would be really, really happy to hear what you have to say - anything you have to say, really - about it. My goal for the ongoing week is to practice my writing and speaking. The next and last week will be for practice exams.

Stay tuned !
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby schlaraffenland » Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:14 am

Prohairesis wrote:If any of you has had experience with the C1-Prüfung, I would be really, really happy to hear what you have to say - anything you have to say, really - about it. My goal for the ongoing week is to practice my writing and speaking. The next and last week will be for practice exams.


I think you're doing a great job with the time that you've got available to you. As your experience with an eine Weisung gebunden sein shows, some of the stuff in the Leseverstehen is just beastly, and pretty much meant to trip up the test-taker without mercy. For a lot of those questions, I remember thinking, "But how could I have known that that was an expression?" Well, I couldn't have... unless I had chanced upon it somewhere beforehand, and that was pretty arbitrary. Sprachgefühl helps enormously but will not lead infallibly to what the test authors are looking for, in the cases when one isn't sure of what the answer might be.

I wish we did get to see the correct answers after receiving our scores! In the bit where you rewrite a casual email and make it more formal and suitable for a new recipient, I recall we were asked to come up with a higher-register way of saying "to eat out at restaurants." I balked. I didn't know how to style that and make it sound more formal. A couple of hours after I left the exam (naturally), auswärts essen came to mind. I'll always wonder if that would indeed have done the trick. It would be great to be able to learn from genuine older exams, but, alas....

Going over N-V-Vs is a good idea, particularly those you see again and again in the test-training booklets or when you skim an article or two every day in your German periodical of choice. It's probably too difficult to expand your mental thesaurus by a huge leap in the coming week, only because this is a task that requires time for absorption, and breadth of materials. (I picture a baleen whale that can swim toward where there might indeed be a big group of krill, but it's also sort of out of the whale's control, and he just has to swim and filter as much water as he can; eventually, he'll get enough krill, but it may not happen in the next hour or two.) Going forward as you build further upon C1+, you know now that you must pay even more attention to synonyms and Umformungen. You'll continue to need them as you progress! I continue to learn them myself every week for exactly this reason. I may never take another exam, but I do like the idea of mental flexibility.

Good luck, keep studying hard, and please give yourself breaks/lovely pastry rewards/quality sleep as well!
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby Prohairesis » Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:16 am

schlaraffenland wrote: I think you're doing a great job with the time that you've got available to you. [...] Good luck, keep studying hard, and please give yourself breaks/lovely pastry rewards/quality sleep as well!


Thank you, Schlaraffenland, for your kind and encouraging words ! It's been a very productive, albeit stressful week, as I prepare for the exam. Even if I don't pass the exam on my first attempt, I still feel that my efforts will not have been in vain. I have learnt so much this past week, and I definitely feel like I'm a lot more at ease with reading and writing in German.

schlaraffenland wrote:Some of the stuff in the Leseverstehen is just beastly, and pretty much meant to trip up the test-taker without mercy.


On the subject of Leseverstehen, I definitely agree that it's without mercy, and without doubt one, if not the most, difficult parts of the exam. There's just so much to do in such short a time. Now, I'm not surprised that I'm having difficulty with this part, seeing as I've never endeavored to finish a book in German (although I have indeed read bits and pieces from books, journals, magazines, etc.) I'm also quite worried about the Schriftlicher Ausdruck, because like the Leseverstehen, there's a lot to do in 1 hour and 20 minutes.

But I worry most about the Mündlicher Ausdruck, because I'm not really brushed up on my conversational German. From your experience, is it difficult to get a good grade for this part ? Also, what would you consider to be a "good grade" for the C1-Prüfung ? I know that the Goethe-Institut defines a good grade ("mit gutem Erfolg") as 80+, but would a score lower than 80 affect, say, an application reviewer's opinion of my overall job/internship application ? I know this question is subjective, but anything that is acceptable by your standards is outstanding to me ;)

On this particular subject of the "usefulness" of the G-Z, do you think the TestDaf is a better alternative for university/job applications ? I hear a lot of people saying that many places don't accept the G-Z C1, and I am somewhat dumfounded as I perceive the G-Z C1 to be more demanding compared to TestDaf.

One last question about test centers for the Goethe-Zertifikat ? Is it true, as some people have said, that passing the G-Z exam at a Goethe-Institut intra-muros (a convoluted way of saying "in Germany") is more difficult than say, the test center here in Bangkok ? People around me say that the examiners are more severe in Germany, but isn't their system supposed to be standardized ?

I had qualms about this with the Alliance Française in Bangkok when I was signing up for the DALF C2 back in 2015. Then, the head organizer of the exams personally reassured me that it was quite the opposite. She said that it was actually more difficult to score a good grade at the AF in Bangkok, mainly because the test centers in France receive many more candidates per round every year and so it is necessary to be more indulgent in the interest of maintaining the pass rate at a constant level compared to the other, smaller test centers around the world. I do realize that all this questioning seems somewhat pointless (or as the French say, "perdre son temps à des bagatelles"), but I would be curious to know what you have to say about this.

Thank you so much for your support throughout my journey, and I'll definitely allot some time in the day for a Saint-Honoré or an Éclair.

To self: Gros gourmand, va !
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Re: Prohairesis' Log : Sitting the Goethe-Zertifikat C1 in June

Postby schlaraffenland » Sat Jun 10, 2017 9:54 pm

Prohairesis wrote:But I worry most about the Mündlicher Ausdruck, because I'm not really brushed up on my conversational German. From your experience, is it difficult to get a good grade for this part ? Also, what would you consider to be a "good grade" for the C1-Prüfung ? I know that the Goethe-Institut defines a good grade ("mit gutem Erfolg") as 80+, but would a score lower than 80 affect, say, an application reviewer's opinion of my overall job/internship application ? I know this question is subjective, but anything that is acceptable by your standards is outstanding to me ;)


Hmm... I think it's all very subjective here. As long as your score is satisfying to you, and you feel it's a decent reflection of your capabilities on a good day, then I think that that's what matters. If you apply for internships or exchange programs that require a certain score, then they'll certainly make that clear in their application instructions. Of those around me in class who were sitting the C1 for a very specific internship or university opportunity, some needed merely to pass (70%+ on each section), whereas some needed 80%+ on every section. The latter requirement was somewhat cruel. I knew someone who was taking the C1 for a second time so that she could go on to the ETH for graduate school, where she had already been accepted on her scholarly merits. On the first try with the exam, she'd had above 80 in all sections except one, where she'd gotten a 79. D'oh! She produced magnificent German, from all that I heard, and had even erased her native accent. It seems silly to hold up a person based on that one measly point, but -- well. (She did get the scores she wanted on the second try!)

I'm also in the dark about what constitutes the typical range of performances on the mündlicher Teil. Most people I know did not share their specific scores, so I wouldn't know how to compare their conversational German with their test performance. All the C1 teachers I had laid emphasis on properly framing one's Vorlesung with the appropriate Redemittel, speaking clearly and slowly and correctly, and that sort of thing. The only statistic I can talk about with certainty is that getting a 100% on the mündlicher Teil seems to be rare. In Freiburg, the first person to do this in the calendar year of 2015 did it in the C1-Prüfung given in September, according to two exam proctors.

Prohairesis wrote:On this particular subject of the "usefulness" of the G-Z, do you think the TestDaf is a better alternative for university/job applications ? I hear a lot of people saying that many places don't accept the G-Z C1, and I am somewhat dumfounded as I perceive the G-Z C1 to be more demanding compared to TestDaf.


I feel the same way as you here. I know zilch about TestDaF except for the hearsay from those around me who were taking it. I guess it actually places you in a CEFR category in each competency based on your performance...? Like, you could score a B1 in speaking but a C1 in writing, whereas you couldn't receive a split indication like this on a Goethe-Zertifikat. It seems that universities in the German-speaking world are either fine with a C1-Zertifikat with 80%+ on each section, or they want a very good TestDAF or a passing (70%+ on all sections) C2-Zertifikat. Maybe universities lean toward TestDaF because "B1 in speaking" says something more concrete about one's abilities than "76% in the mündlicher Teil" does on a C1-Zertifikat. On the other hand, if I recall correctly, the TestDaF test-takers record their mündlicher Teil on a computer microphone; there's no live assessment. That seems kind of weird to me.

Prohairesis wrote:One last question about test centers for the Goethe-Zertifikat ? Is it true, as some people have said, that passing the G-Z exam at a Goethe-Institut intra-muros (a convoluted way of saying "in Germany") is more difficult than say, the test center here in Bangkok ? People around me say that the examiners are more severe in Germany, but isn't their system supposed to be standardized ?


I think it's supposed to be the same everywhere, too, but rumors swirl about relative difficulty levels. I have never heard anything from G-I teachers to substantiate these rumors, and I have become friends with four or five G-I teachers on three continents who proctor exams. The written test and the prompts are the same everywhere for each test date, no matter where you are in the world. I think people's impressions about relative difficulty come from the mündlicher Teil, but without necessarily being at all well founded. I knew two native French speakers who were in courses in Freiburg but who expressly went home during the holidays to sit the C1 in le monde francophone, because "when you're French, they go easier on you in France for the mündlicher Teil." But neither person had ever taken the C1 in the German-speaking world, so it's hard to say why they thought that, or indeed if their score ended up being better because of this. It wouldn't surprise me if they simply felt better being unter sich in the typical French way. ;)

For my part, I found all of my examiners in Germany (Dresden, Freiburg, and Frankfurt) to be very kind. The last thing they wanted was for the candidate to feel anxious, ill at ease, or upset, and so they certainly didn't pile on any secondary cruelty, pettiness, or severity. They didn't try to trip us up (the written exam did that just fine :p). And they were good at gently steering loquacious partners back to the topic at hand or getting them to wrap it up so that the less assertive partner (heh, me) could say her bit. I appreciated that.

In short, I think you've triangulated your feedback mechanisms well (current G-I teacher, test prep books, the exam itself). The exam will function as your measuring stick, and you can see how you feel about your score relative to the subjective variables of the day (did you sleep enough? Did you happen to get a headache that day? Did you have to write about a topic for which you might not have much interest or have much to say, like doping in sports?). If you need or want to take it again after that, you'll be really well armed as far as what to focus on in the future. And we'll be cheering you on!
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