Prohairesis wrote:Yes, nicely put ! I remember when I was preparing my DALF C2, it was about one month after I had graduated from my Bachelor's programme in French literature. At that point in time, I felt like I was at the top of my game - that was, until I started preparing for the C2.
I remember listening to a 15-minute debate and having to note all the key points down. The whole time, I was under immense pressure to note everything down and to not miss an important point while the audio clip continued to play. The key points would then feed into a 30-minute presentation I would have to subsequently prepare for in 1 hour. The whole time, I was thinking whether I was actually being tested for my language skills, or for my note-taking and summarizing skills. Part of the criteria on which the oral presentation was based was the candidate's ability to convince and defend him/herself against the examiner's questions and doubts. So in a way, you're being graded not so much on your fluency (as that is the minimum requirement at this level), but on your rhetorical and discursive techniques.
Interesting. This was actually the easiest part of the DALF C2 exam for me!
I found the audio easy, as I had been really well prepared by more difficult stuff (tv series), talking about it was not problem at and it was quite fun (the audio was very enjoyable too), all the work with the audio (like note taking or the "discursing techniques") was much less demanding then my university classes and exams (everything seems easier than for example pathology). My main trouble in the speaking part were two or three very stupid mistakes, and one time during which I don't know whether they thought I didn't understand the question due to langauge skills, while I simply misunderstood it like some questions during a normal university exam, but the difference may not matter. And my accent could have been a problem. But still, 42/50 points was not a bad result at all.
But the writing was a real hell. The balance between "not getting too far from the topic as presented in the dossier" and "not copying too much from the dossier" was really challenging. Even if I put aside mistakes I surely made in the text, the overall task of composing such a text within the time limit was very hard for me. The quality and form of the last quarter or so really suffered. Being up to the level native lycéens are trained to achieve during several years of text analysing and recomposing, while vast majority of C2 writing resources supposed it was just a problem of the language (while the whole style is simply different from highschool writing in the Czech Republic, in the UK, or another individual country. A friend of mine has personal experience with these three education systems and found these difference to be one of the biggest challenges), that was difficult even with the help of a tutor. I got 16 or so points, definitely not a stellar result, and I was glad.
I think there is a major discrepancy between the assignment samples in the preparatory books, and the real ones. Not in terms of content, the same subjects get regurgitated over and over again, at least in the science version. But rather in the form of the assignment.
I feel partially relieved I am highly unlikely to EVER try a C2 German exam, reading this thread!
B2 will be a huge enough challenge for me.
The only difference I would note between schlaraffenland's and my personal experience preparing for the C2 exam is that I was doing it on my own, which meant I didn't know where to situate myself in relation to others and the expected quality at this level. And I remember very distinctly breaking down in the middle of practice and throwing my exam-prep book half way across the room. I suppose that's what the C2 level entails, after all...
Well, I'd say English and German are the only languages with wildly accessible preparatory classes, and from I heard from their past candidates, they are still not worth it. The comparation to others is a tricky thing and I don't consider it that useful in the end. You know you did that speaking exercise worse than John did, but who knows what grade would John get for such an achievement, perhaps he'd get full points and you just a few points less. Or you would both fail, with John being a point bellow the limit and you deep bellow. And you don't need to know how others did a multiple choice exercise, as you know 40% is pretty bad no matter the other results
. I actually wonder, whether the language exams tend to have some sort of correction factor, like crossing out a question almost noone got right. I don't think so.
It can damage one's confidence at the exam and that's the last thing you need. I found out too late I was the first DALF C2 candidate my tutor had been preparing, so while it was good he suggested I tried the C2 exam (I think it was actually another student of his that I met, who said it first), the overall praise of the speaking level was a bit deceiving (I wrote about this elsewhere already). And he was still one of the very few available more or less suitable tutors in Prague. I don't know whether there is anyone in Prague, who has prepared dozens of C2 candidates, as there are very few showing up for each one. (it is quite realistic to guess there are five per year, three of which live mostly abroad. Than the tutor would have gather all the rest for more than a decade in order to get a large amount of experience). The writing assessment was quite realistic, I suppose, he was comparing me to a DALF C1 student of his, who was writing better than me, but unfortunately didn't show me examples. In general, I had quite a good confidence before the exam, my nervousness quota being filled up by university exams.
But then I entered the classroom, where the written exam was being taken. My first comparation to other real candidates. We were three. One had studied in France for several years. The other had been married to a native and living abroad for a decade or more. And than there was me.
My confidence dropped to the floor level for a moment.
I wasn't throwing DALF preparatory books around, all the suitable places in my room had already been covered with previously thrown microbiology textbooks and notes
Perhaps, it was very beneficial to have something else to channel the stress to than the DALF