Q: What would be worse than having an exam on the weekend?
A: Having an exam on the weekend more than 60km away from home and waking up late for it.
IELTS, which stands for "International English Language Testing System", is the most popular English language exam, it is very useful for imigration or higher education acceptance or even for job interviews all over the world for including it in one's resume can increase his chances of having the job.
I took this exam two years ago for the first time, but now that it expired (it's valid for two years), I took it again this morning. Last time, I had a band 7.0 which is equivalent to C1 (advanced). Will I be able to beat that?
Being over confident about my english language, I didn't spare much time to prepare for it untill last night when the red alarm turned on. I studied late in the night, set the alarm and slept. I would have only slept 3 hours before the exam if things went as planned, and I had no problem with that. but that's not what happened, I woke up one and a half hour later than I was supposed to.
To cover for that, I "scan-read" the part where I wake up slowly and prepare myself before getting out, I ran whenever I was supposed to walk, and trust me running in the morning, in such hot whether, after sleeping no more than 4 and a half hour (some of them unplanned for), without breakfast was a challenge!
I also got lucky with two more things to finally get to sit for the exam, the first thing was public transport, I didn't get trapped in the worst case senarion that I had planned for, and the second was the fact that there was about 90 people taking that exam in the same place in the same time as me. Of course, recieving them, registering them, taking their cellphones and everything they have and don't need for the exam, and leading them to their seats took a lot of time.
Coming 25 min late only spared me a slowly advancing long queue after all. With that very needed extra sleep that it allowed me, I can tell now that it was a blessing.
And so the exam started.
The exam has four sections: Speaking, listening, reading and writing. Having done the speaking part on monday, I only did the other three this morning.
Listening was first
We've listened to three or four passages (I honestly forgot) that lasted 20 min in total and answered simultaneously to 40 questions, one mark for each, on the questions sheet. Then, they allowed us 10 min to copy our answers on the answers sheet.
Then there was Reading:
In this section, we had to read three texts, answer on the questions sheet the copy the answers, or just answer directly on the answers sheet, but that wouldn't be practical and it would lead to other mistakes of putting the right answer but in the wrong place... anyway, this whole procedure should be done in 20 min for each text.
Here I did the same mistake I did last time, whis consists in wasting too much time in one text then having to finish another in too little time. I finished the first one in 16 min, but of course without copying the answers. Then I wasted about 30 min between aswering to questions about the second text and copying all my aswers about both texts on the answers sheet, leaving less than 15 min for the last one. I think I managed to do weel enough but of course I didn't have the time to make sure.
To be honest I only managed to be relaxed and confident during those two sections because I was too frightened of the Writing section to fear any of them.
Finally, Writing:
Here we had two tasks in one hour. The second one being worth double the first, it is advised to leave 40 min for it and only spend 20 for the first task. Once again, I repeated my mistake from last time, and spent more thank half the time on the first task, but unlike last time, I didn't panic, I was calm, doing my best to cover for it.
The first task was to write an essay with a minimum of 150 words analyzing two charts about the tourism in the UK. The second one was an argumentative essay with a minimun of 250 words.
And so it ends.
My predictions:
I have always been good with predicting my marks right after passing exams, for this one I'd say I'll have:
-7.5 or 8.0 for the speaking part, depending on wheather they tolerate giving false informations with a confident tone of voice.
-7.0 or 7.5 for the listening part depending on how lucky I was with guessing the answers I missed hearing.
-7.0 For the reading part.
-6.5 For the writing part.
This would lead to a band 7.5 at most or 7.0 (my old mark) at least. I'd be happy with any of them but I know I could have done better and not because of of lack of preparation or lack of sleep or hunger and thirst or any other excuse. I could have done better if I managed my time better, because these exams are all about time management. 150 words or 250, for instence, are irrelevent in other circonstances, but with time limits everything becomes challenging. Also paying attention during the listening is a key to success in that section. This migh sound too obvious but trust me it's easy to forget it during the exam. I only missed two or three today, but that's still unforgivable.
The results will be out two weeks from now.
Celebrations (or was it?)
To celebrate finishing the exam, with food or drinks not being an option (because it's Ramadhan) I decided to invest in my luck (and no I didn't go to a casino). I went to an old books store where I got lucky with an ancient copy, with a hard cover of Léon Tolstoï 's book "La guerre et la paix".
Now here I am on steemit, instead of sleeping time away till sundown (when I get to eat and drink), typing the notes I wrote in public transport instead of sleeping my way home.
(I hope you didn't mind the spelling mistakes caused by that)