Midterm Blues

Hey everyone!

I had my midterms last week. As expected, I was slaughtered; I am pleasantly surprised that I passed all of them. (Comprehensive (Written Comp (综合) - 65 * 80%, Oral (口语) - 72 * 20%) - 66; Reading Comprehension (阅读) - 65; Listening Comprehension (听力)- 70.) One of my marks (Listening) actually rose from last semester; according to the instructor, I did better on the difficult part of the exam than on the simple part.

As far as I'm concerned, the Listening Comprehension course is useful for three things: a) training for on-the-spot translation; b) listening to radio broadcasts; and c) writing Listening Comprehension exams. If the exam's recorded voices are so swift that native speakers have trouble understanding them, then it's not a fair gauge of our listening ability. If the only way to study properly for this exam is by listening to the lessons afresh because many of the questions on the exam are lifted directly from the recordings for the lessons, and we're able to answer correctly a large number of questions before we even hear them, then the exam is again not a useful gauge of our listening ability. What would be more useful is a (small) class in which we do nothing but talk.

I guess that's enough of my idle ranting for now. Talk to you soon!