Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

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MaggieMae
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Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby MaggieMae » Thu May 12, 2022 6:11 pm

At the beginning of April, I had taken and failed the German C1 Goethe Institut Exam, by 2 points. My instructors have since given me permission to continue in C2 classes and not worry about it... but I worry about it. It makes me feel like I don't deserve to be in C2 classes, among other things.

Backstory: I don't actually need the C1 Certificate, I ultimately just need the C2. I did this one mostly for the experience. However, this is also the first time I've ever failed on any standardized test ever (and being originally from the US, that's pretty big).

So, really, I've lost all the self confidence I had at this language. No amount of, "But you speak German really well, especially for someone who only moved here a year and a half ago!" has helped to get that confidence back. I get that statement pretty much every time I talk to anyone about it, and it's a great sentiment and all, but it still means I'm not good ENOUGH.

At first, I thought it'd only tank my confidence for the C2 test, but I could power through that by learning the material really well beforehand... but no. Now I'm freezing up every time I have to read something that even looks like a test problem, especially fill in the blank texts. Even sometimes when it's just one sentence! (Reading Comp was my worst score, with two fill in the blank portions, so I figure this has a lot to do with it.) And getting any answers wrong means I'll start tearing up, no matter how many I got right.

I KNOW I'm better than this. I KNOW I'm super smart, hardworking, and I've already put so much blood, sweat, and tears into this language. But it's a downward spiral that I can't get out of. (Teufelskreis (devil's circle) in German, which is here very appropriate.)

I'm not good at failing. Please, I need help.
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby iguanamon » Thu May 12, 2022 6:35 pm

First, welcome to the forum, MaggieMae! You should not feel a failure simply because you didn't pass a CEFR test. There are people here who have failed and came back to pass it later, probably more often than not. I'm sure you will see their stories soon. Testing itself is imperfect and can be confusing given the time parameters and phrasing of questions/answers... especially in a second language. I failed the State Department English test which was 90 paragraph long questions and multiple choice answers in 60 minutes. Years later I found out it was designed to weed out anyone who didn't graduate from an Ivy League school. After I passed it, I no longer wanted the job. The point is, cut yourself some slack. It ain't everybody who can even come that close on a CEFR exam in German.

You are better off for having had the experience even though you didn't pass. Now you know what to expect. You can take it again with more, or less, preparation and more learned knowledge. You are "in"-country. That's an advantage. Books, and media, are at your fingertips. I'd probably join an in-person book club or even an online one, really anything that keeps you in touch with the language. Can you audit an evening adult course taught to native German-speakers? Is there a toastmasters or equivalent near you in Switzerland you could join?

Not passing the test has hammered your confidence, but you are still the same person as you were before you took that test- with the same knowledge and skills. For now, relax. Then, though it may sound trite, pick yourself up. Dust yourself off and get back on that bike. If you can see the areas for which you need more work, try to improve them for the next exam. Schedule the next exam for a few months from now and you will make it happen. Good luck and hang in there!
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MaggieMae
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby MaggieMae » Thu May 12, 2022 7:13 pm

My local library has a Deutsch Sprach Café and a Shared Reading in Deutsch program once a month, but the meetings feel so far apart. I was so excited to see the Super Challenge on here, because hopefully that will spur me on to reading more.

Edited to fix auto correct.
Last edited by MaggieMae on Thu May 12, 2022 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby Iversen » Thu May 12, 2022 8:09 pm

Do you actually NEED to complete that C1 exam before a certain date to proceed to the C2 level? If not then use the opportunity you have been given to follow the C2 courses and keep doing your thing.

You haven't written much about your study methods and time expenditure so it's hard to say what you could do better, but maybe you are too focused on following the courses? When I studied French many years ago I was told that I could speak almost too fluent French and my teachers were totally satisfied with the things I said - but they weren't as satisfied with my error level and pronunciation, and I simply had to pass a test in conversation. I solved the problem by NOT following any courses for half a year and then participating in one weekend gathering and doing two weeks of strictly monolingual interrailing in French, and then my conversation marks catapulted upwards. I don't say that you should drop the courses, especially when your teachers are flexible enough to let you participate in spite of those missing 2 points, but your facility with the German language should be developed by doing things outside the courses.
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby BeaP » Thu May 12, 2022 8:15 pm

I second iguanamon's advice: try to take care of yourself, calm down, relax, go out with friends, try to find ways to get rid of stress. If you want to be active, use the search function and look for logs written by people who took the Goethe C2, or any C2 exam. Look for threads in other sections about C2 knowledge. Note down the things you find useful. (Only the practical ones, you'll remember the theory.) Seeing other people's efforts can also give motivation. It's hard for everyone. I'm preparing for the DELE C2 at the moment, here's my log:
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17392

In my opinions the essentials for an exam like this are:
- mock exam books (I have the Klett and the Hueber book for the Goethe C2, I can look at these if something specific comes up)
- newspaper articles
- native media (mostly interviews and TED talks)
- there's no good C2 coursebook (in my opinion), so at least one good C1 coursebook that shows you which topics you need to know (C2 topics are very similar to C1 topics) and gives some samples for formal language usage (both oral and written) - don't get the topics from outdated books, at the exams they usually use current ones

Start with mock exams, analyse your own production, face your weak points, note down for yourself what are the areas that you need to improve. Consider starting a log. If you write about concrete things, more people will join the discussion, you'll get more useful advice.
Try to do a whole reading section from a mock exam, keep the time frame. Here's a possible checklist:
What difficulties did I have?
I'm not familiar with these type of texts. I don't know enough vocabulary. I didn't understand the options in the multiple-choice exercises. I didn't see the connection between the text and the questions. I thought more than one option was true. I spent too much time on one task. I spent too much time on rereading the texts.

Reading and listening tasks always use distractors. These are options that seem to be good (they're very similar to the right answer), but they're there to trick you. Analyse the distractors. Think like an examiner. One answer is correct, two are almost correct. When you've corrected your answers, think about the distractors: what's their connection with the text and the right option? Why are they tricky? Why did the examiners choose these? If you know the exam in depth, you'll be much more confident. If you know how much time you have for a task and feel when it's almost up, you won't be worried. Divide the time: task 1, task 2, and so on. Leave some minutes for copying your answers of the answer sheet and re-visiting hard questions. Write in the texts while doing the tasks, underline key words, mark the questions you're not sure about with an exclamation mark.

Bottom line: Information, knowledge, planning reduces stress in exam situations. If you know what's expected and how to achieve it, you'll relax.
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby gsbod » Thu May 12, 2022 9:28 pm

There's lots of thoughtful advice here already but I'll see what I can add.

Firstly, I think it's a real positive that your teachers have allowed you to continue onto a C2 course. They didn't have to do that, and if they didn't think you were up to it, they wouldn't have. They know what it takes to get a student to C2. They have confidence in you, so I think you can take a little confidence from that too.

Secondly, you said you don't need C1, and sat the exam mainly for the experience. So maybe it helps to view the outcome of that exam as part of that experience, maybe something you can learn from? Of course it's unpleasant failing anything, but now you've failed once it'll hurt less if you fail again. And if you are sitting a language exam just for the experience of it (rather than, say, for immigration requirements), it is really quite a low stakes exam to fail. You can take it as many times as you're willing to pay the exam fees, and nobody cares how many times you had to sit the exam before you finally passed it.

Thirdly, whilst a well planned exam is probably the best available tool to measure somebody's competence in a language, it is not infallible. It is really just a measure of your performance on one particular day, at one particular time, on one particular set of questions. If you sat another C1 paper tomorrow, you probably wouldn't get the same score and yet, overall, your competence in German hasn't really changed from one day to the next. The problem lies in the fact that there is an arbitrary cut off between pass and fail. There's not a huge difference in terms of performance between two points below the pass mark and two points above, especially for the comprehension sections of the test, but because of that pass/fail boundary the difference is made to feel huge. You start to realise how bizarre the whole exam setup is and how absurd it is to judge your own worth and the worth of others according to exam results alone...

As to what you should do next, I think there are maybe two approaches you could consider. Given that your biggest issue seems to be around reading comprehension, you could face the exam demon head on, work through a load of practice papers until you feel more comfortable with them. Or you could just put the exam stuff to one side and work on your reading comprehension by reading things that interest you until you feel comfortable enough to have another go on some exam material. I think either approach will yield results, depending on how you feel about them. Go with whichever feels right for you. Or there are probably other options out there I haven't thought of.

Good luck, you've got this! German is awesome, but exams are not!
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby rdearman » Thu May 12, 2022 9:45 pm

I have no advice to give you other than two proverbs, one Japanese and one Korean.

Nana korobi yaoki (七転び八起き), which translates to “7 falls, 8 rises”, to succeed if you fall down 7 times, then get up 8. And the Korean one is the title of my log. 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees). Which is to say, even a native German speaker can fail a test. So just get up, dust yourself off, and start again. :ugeek:
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby MaggieMae » Thu May 12, 2022 10:04 pm

Thank you all for your kind words and insights! I suppose the hardest part to come to terms with was that I did 6 different mock tests in the month before my exam, and in not a single one of them had scored so low. I also came out of the test feeling like I understood the texts, one of them was even about a favorite subject of mine, so that was a harsh blow as well.

@iguanamon, now that I have the time to respond properly... I would love to find a book club. I would absolutely love it. Unfortunately, they're not so common out here, and most are either in English, in Zürich (an hour and a half train ride from me), or both. I've also never heard of toast masters before. Looks like a public speaking thing? My speaking score was actually my highest score of all of them, though. ;)

@Iversen, no, I don't need it, as is stated in my original post. Nothing in my courses has really changed, I'm just clamming up during exercises unless my husband is literally looking over my shoulder and helping me (he's a native speaker). I'm also completely immersed in written German here (the German Swiss may speak Swiss German, but they write in High German), my phone, tv, and computer are set to German, and at least half the people I text can only communicate with me in German, so I do have plenty of outside the classroom everyday interactions.

gsbod wrote:You start to realise how bizarre the whole exam setup is and how absurd it is to judge your own worth and the worth of others according to exam results alone...


This. Absolutely. I found that the C1 Leseverstehen was more about figuring out and writing down the words they wanted correctly than actually understanding what you were reading. Only one section was actually over if I could understand what I was reading. Also, I don't need the C1 for immigration, thankfully my marriage exempts me from language requirements in that regard, but if I want to work as an elementary teacher, I need C2 before they'll even look at my degree. Which stinks. I don't know if I even want to take this exam...

@BeaP I also have the Klett and Hueber books for C2. I haven't started on those yet, but I did use the Klett C1 book to prepare for C1. I do love how they explain everything in there. For C2, I'm also using Endstation C2 and Erkundungen C2 to learn the necessary material. I'll likely be taking C2 in the fall.
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby MaggieMae » Thu May 12, 2022 10:12 pm

rdearman wrote:Nana korobi yaoki (七転び八起き), which translates to “7 falls, 8 rises”, to succeed if you fall down 7 times, then get up 8. And the Korean one is the title of my log. 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees).


Funny enough, I've heard both of those proverbs before! They're really good ones!

I do keep trying to remind myself that, statistically speaking, 1/3 of native German speakers can't pass the C1 exam. And rightfully so... it involves reading two full articles, an abstract, two letters, and four blog comments, listening to recorded conversations, some with a lot of background noise or dialectal accents, writing an essay on a statistical graph, editing a letter, giving a presentation with only 15 min preparation, and planning something with a partner you've likely never met before... all in one day. It's really insane what they require us to do to prove we're proficient in a language...
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Re: Bouncing Back After Failed Exam

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 12, 2022 11:37 pm

Tons of good advice already given. I would like to add my two cents:

There is a lot of overlap between the levels. Failing C1 doesn't mean you will fail C2 or that you cannot prepare for it. You can retake C1, or you can prepare for C2 right away, I don't think it changes much. And frankly, many people feel a lot like you, if the pass by one or two points, not just if they fail by one or two points (but yeah, it always sucks to barely fail something! Much more than failing it "properly" and feeling like you deserved it).

What were your weaknesses at this exam? Those need to be adressed, whether you take C1 againt or you aim for C2 right away. A lot of the preparation for both (such as reading normal books or watching normal tv) is the same. They both require a solid level of grammar and large vocab. They both require you to be very very good. They both expect you to deal with absolutely any unexpected topic and assignment thrown at you.

MaggieMae wrote: I'm also completely immersed in written German here (the German Swiss may speak Swiss German, but they write in High German), my phone, tv, and computer are set to German, and at least half the people I text can only communicate with me in German, so I do have plenty of outside the classroom everyday interactions.

Then perhaps you also need some not everyday types of activities too. The high level language exams tend to have much more common with the normal exams and education traditions of the natives, than just the lower level exams for foreigners. It is not about becoming a native (impossible) or being totally native like (not that far from impossible for most people), but about functioning like a native person in various situations.

A part of what helped me get to C2 French: I partially recreated my cultural and educational background. So, perhaps your everyday interactions could be enriched by some activities that are no longer part of your everyday life, but used to be during your formative years. So, don't rely on texting people and doing mock exams, try writing stuff as if you were a germanophone highschooler. Don't focus just on exam-like reading, but read stuff a normally educated germanophone could be interested in and leave your comfort zone. Not sure my examples are clear enough to give you the idea.


gsbod wrote:You start to realise how bizarre the whole exam setup is and how absurd it is to judge your own worth and the worth of others according to exam results alone...


This. Absolutely. I found that the C1 Leseverstehen was more about figuring out and writing down the words they wanted correctly than actually understanding what you were reading. Only one section was actually over if I could understand what I was reading. Also, I don't need the C1 for immigration, thankfully my marriage exempts me from language requirements in that regard, but if I want to work as an elementary teacher, I need C2 before they'll even look at my degree. Which stinks. I don't know if I even want to take this exam...

[quote]
Yeah, the "comprehension" tasks are sometimes more "telepathy" tasks. :-D (I've recently taken Goethe B2. In some comprehension tasks, I was extremely unsure what to cross in spite of understanding the text well. More answers would fit, depending on how you approached the question. And the opposite: I completed one of the listening tasks before I even heard the audio! It was just so predictable and the audio just confirmed my guesses :-D ).

I think you want the exam, this thread really looks like it! And it will be awesome! Imagine the feeling, when you'll have received your C2 passing results! A proof that all that hard work paid off and you are absolutely badass!!!
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