The Worst Exam of my Life

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The worst exam of my life... this is a topic I don't joke about. This is a very serious subject. Today I felt stupid, as if I didn't know anything, as if I hadn't studied anything. I think each one of us has felt like that: stupid, idiotic and hopeless.

So what was the exam like?

At my university all degrees have a module called 'Practical Learning of the Spanish/Italian/German/English/Russian/etc. Language'. This module is divided into several smaller categories.

• Practical Learning of the Spanish Language: Grammar
• Practical Learning of the Spanish Language: Working with Texts
• Practical Learning of the Spanish Language: Conversation
• Practical Learning of the Spanish Language: Written Language
• Practical Learning of the Spanish Language: Listening Comprehension

Normally during the week each part of the module lasts 90 minutes. But... we have a different lecturer for each category and for each part we have to study other things. At either the end of the semester or the end of year we take an exam on each category and each exam also lasts 90 minutes. Sometimes this all changes, meaning, now in the final year of university we only have the sections on grammar, working with texts and conversation.

So what happens with our grade? Well, we are graded on each category and then we are given an average grade. What horror! Something completely horrible!

I've just done one of them exams. Now my head hurts. I'm so tired that I'm thinking of sleeping for thirteen hours.

What was the worst part?

This semester, the most horrific part was the work with texts category. What did we have to do in this exam? We had to do many things, such as:

• Correct errors linked to direct and indirect objects, meaning, changing "lo" to "le" and vice versa
• Correct tenses, meaning we had to decide if the indicative is needed, if it's better to write something in the indefinite or imperfect
• Correct punctuation
• Translate some sentences from Polish into Spanish
• And finally, we had to correct... everything, meaning, we had to correct the style of a text

Horrible! So... this semester we've done loads of exercises on every topic, but... our lecturer gave us sentences to translate from Science-Fiction books, with words that are either little well-known or belong to the world of "ogros y brujas" (Ogres and Witches). I understood... or we understood only fifty percent of the text. It's not possible to perfectly complete exercises if you don't even know what the text is about.

It's insane. It's crap.

I want to break something.

I was really prepared for this exam. Honestly. Within a month I'll be in Vigro! And in Poland all resit exams are in March... honestly... I hope everything went well. We'll know tomorrow.

I don't mean to complain. But I'd like to know my results. I hate waiting: the hours pass and you can't do anything. The answers can't be changed. You don't know if you still need to study... or if you can relax now. If you fail one category, you have to re-do them all. That's insane, right? They say that it's done this way so that we know how to speak the language well. Does it work? I think so. In order to pass, you need to have sound knowledge of the languages you study.

But... Why were we given Science-Fiction texts?

And on Friday, the conversation awaits us. We're going to speak with two lecturers: one is Spanish and the other is Polish, who is Subject Coordinator. But this exam won't be difficult, at least I hope it'll be easy;)

I can't do anything now. I'm trying to think about stuff that has nothing to do with my studies. I'm planning my next trip to Spain. i'm still just sorting out a few things. And the most important thing: I haven't bought my ticket. I hope they're cheaper tomorrow. But we'll speak about that another day.

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