ICLP Placement

中文的语言有很多的生词。

The Chinese language has many words.

My Chinese Exam

I don’t think I fully understood this until today. Officially, today was the beginning of our ICLP summer program. For the few days that I’ve been here in Taiwan already it has been for the CET program. We had the opportunity to visit various locations around the city and essentially prepare for our structured life taking classes and going to our internships, to start in a few weeks.

This morning all ICLP students took our placement exams. I recall last summer that I was nervous about whether or not I’d be placed into the correct Chinese course when I had a Skype video call with my Chinese professor at Brandeis (陆老师）. But, oh my god I was in for a surprise.

ICLP’s placement exam is taken in two parts: a two-part 15-20 minute speaking test a few of the professors, and then a long two hour listening/writing exam. When I came out of my speaking exam I felt as if I had done relatively okay. I answered their questions and tried to expand upon what they were asking (something I remembered from my year at Brandeis. In order to really improve your speaking, be sure to answer the question and give like an additional tidbit). However, when I went out and talked with some other students it seemed as if they were maybe being asked more difficult questions. Therefore, I knew that it would be important for me to do well on my listening/writing exam in order to ensure that I would be placed into the correct level.

I went into the test all doe-eyed and ready to rock the exam, two hours later all I was thinking “I thought I’d do amazing on this part of the exam. I thought I did fairly well on the writing, but I like I KNOW that I could have done better on the listening portion of the exam.”

Basically to sum up the two-hour written exam, 中文的语言有很多的生词。