CPE - Listening and Speaking

EDIT: I've been noticed by a friend of mine that I have messed up tenses in this post. It's very likely the case, because even checking only few lines showed me that I really made some mistakes. I _might_ correct them at an unspecified time in the future, but at the moment I can't be bothered. I'm always mixing up past simple and present perfect.
Also, this is not a boasting post. If you find it such, you are plain wrong.

I'll try to keep this short, not that usual wall of text.

As you all know, I've attended a first part of CPE examinations today. It consisted of two tests, Listening and Speaking, the rest is scheduled for the 13th.

First was the Listening. We were asked to arrive 30 minutes in advance, which proved to be completely unnecessary, as I've arrived only about 20 minutes in advance and still had to wait. After being let in we found our seats according to our answer sheet with names printed upon them. After a short introduction from the supervisor, some man not having a sheet with his name in the room at all and after a short sound-check the answer sheets were handed out and the test started. It was pretty standard, I've done all the tests from previous years so nothing really surprised me. Understaning was very easy, I could have literally transcribed the script, but as usually the question-answer pairs were often two-way and very unclear - that is even if you knew perfectly well what the people on the tape said, you didn't know what answer to choose. As I've said: standard. Just one more remark: the headphones didn't fit me at all and kept falling off my head and by having the sound come at you from three different sources (the headphones, one soundspeaker and second soundspeaker at the other end of the room) it was kinda echo'ed. Nothing critical, but still annyoing.

Next was the Speaking. I had to wait at the vicinity of Budějovická underground station for about one hour, which I found extremely boring. The place has nothing to offer; if you ever find yourself in need of spending prolonged period of time at that place, bring a book. Or two. When I entered the waiting room in the local gymnasium, I met our ex-professor Folda (who is known to be a pojeb). He was taking the FCE level exams. After a while the organizators read out my and one girl's name out loud, so we stepped forward and subsequently were given instructions as to the place where we should go. Off we went and I started a little chit-chat, just to learn something about that girl and so that we feel better when taking the test together afterwards. Do this, it helps. Get to know your co-examinee. When we entered the classroom, there were two examiners. One who talked to us and one who was making notes. Off went the examination, also strictly according to the guidelines I read earlier in the previous year tests. So strictly in fact, that I didn't like it at all. The examiner stared at us with rather blank face, not showing any understaning nor emotion, didn't react to what we said at all, only with standard "Hm. Now I will ask you some other question." sort of stuff. Really annyoing if you ask me. Also the topics we had to speak about for two minutes were quite academic - increasing the effectivity of people working (my co-examinee Karolina's) and of public transport systems (mine). I found two minutes extremely short and insufficient, especially because after the time run out (which I couldn't know, as the clocks were hidden from us) the examiner very ruthlessly cut in and ended me almost in the middle of my sentence with very standartized "Thank you, Adam.". I didn't learn to like that man. A few more points: I found myself resorting to calling things "things" instead ofby their real names and I also didn't really get to any conclusion during the speech I made (the two minutes one). It's not as easy as it seems. There are I think 5 areas that are marked in this test. It would be: Lexical Resource, Grammatical Resource, Discourse Development, Pronounciation and the last one I can't remember atm.

I'm not exactly excited and confident about the results, I think the girl spoke better than me and that I may have made some mistakes in the Listening test, but I think I'll pass.

Adam

P.S.: I've also met Barbara Holcatova at the Speaking part, applying for CAE. Rather nervous but still herself. Yeah, with a boyfriend. More like a manfriend actually, that guy must have been like 30.