Well that’s frustrating, I found out the TOP pilot test would be the same day as the party I was having (ie today). And I was all excited, I could write the test in the morning run after and then party in the afternoon.
I got up all early, had a breakfast like a good girl and went to the test. Sat down and started, and lemmi tell you the listening portion of the test was ridiculously boring. It was so easy, the only thing I was a little stumped on was the word for tennis ball, 😀 as I don’t happen to know that word. BUT then the test buggered up (we were testing on computers) and jumped to the end of the test. So we all missed more than half of the listening portion of the test.
They told us to just continue with the test and that they would sort it out later. So I started on the reading portion, which was HARD in part because I’m a bit crap at reading and also it was more difficult reading the characters on the computer screen. Somewhat itsy font and generally reading on a computer is more difficult than on paper.
So when we finished the test, they told us that to complete the part of the test that was messed up. But I can’t I’m having guests, then I found out that actually I had to write both the morning and the afternoon tests in order to get the score anyway.
DAMNIT so it turns out I apparently just can’t read in English, and missed the part that you had to do two tests. The upside is if you do both tests then you can do the real test for free (instead of a 30$ charge) and get an official certificate. The down side is I can’t do the second test and the next set won’t be until March.
All of this wouldn’t really have mattered as I didn’t realize I could do the real test for free from writing the two tests in the first place. All I wanted to know was would I pass the test if I wrote it or not, but I don’t even get to know that because the computer system screwed up. The worst part is I’m pretty sure I would have passed the test (even with my shitty reading score).
Oh well, I guess I’ll go for a run and cry into my Wheaties later. I guess I have a better idea of what I need to study.. the contrast of how easy the listening was for me and how hard the reading was really shows I need to get my reading up.
Magdalicious ... A life better lived 
Hmm. Mine would be the opposite. Reading is my strongest area, but my listening skills are downright pathetic.
Plus, I’ve heard from TOP takers that they deliberately make the listening part very confusing because the government wants the ROC proficiency test to be of a higher standard, aka harder, than the PRC proficiency test.
Where did you study Chinese?
See well it’s more a comment on my skills than the test… my listening and spoken skills are some where between intermediate and high intermediate. But my reading is tragic, funnily enough my writing is actually better than my reading in some ways. I’m not going to school anywhere, nor have I really a few one on one class at this school or that once a week years ago. Mostly I study on my own (so not a lot of the time) and my friend/teacher tutors me but again we mostly do spoken. We tried some reading but it was really painfully hard and I got frustrated. I think I’m just going to suck it up and get the Practical audio visual books and study them from the beginning. So frustrating though… I can’t ever join a class because I would be poking my eye out with a pencil with boredom at the spoken parts… and sweating my ass off for the written. sigh
I think it’s great that you’ve taken the initiative to take the test, whether it worked out or not. Good luck with the reading study… you know you can do it 🙂
We’ll see how it goes… 😛
hey, i heard you went to Japan and were going to blog about it… and more importantly put up the funny song videos from Gero….
🙂
That’s so bizarre! Where did you hear that? 😀