Tuesday, October 10, 2006

My first test in Icelandic

There are a few things I have to point out first,

Kasper had Monday and Tuesday off for parent teacher interviews. Nobody told me there would be no school so I dropped him off on Monday like usual. I went to my class and half way through got a call from the school saying there was no classes and I should come pick up Kasper. He had been there over an hour already, wow, did I ever feel like a bad mom. I ran out of class, picked him up and tried to be super nice the rest of the day.

So today I had to bring Kasper to class with me and to my exam at 8 a.m.

The teacher told us the test would be based on the first section of the class. Mostly vegetables and simple sentences. She said there would not be grammar because we have not had enough experience with it. I think this is fair, each word has 3 to 4 endings depending on so many different things.

I have memorised my foods and easy sentences with verbs, like I am going swimming today. I really felt I was ready for anything.

So I showed up this morning after studying all night. I had Kasper armed with a new coloring book and stickers. I told him he would have to sit perfectly quiet for an hour and a half. The teacher asked if I remembered that we had the test this morning, I told her I sure did but he had no school and I did not have a lot of notice. I promised he would not be helping me.

So I start the test. The first page had three questions on vegetables. Those were no problem. Next was matching household items with what room they belonged in. This was not supposed to be here. My head is full of food words. The good news is we just did this 2 weeks ago so I might have gotten half of them right.

Next page, a paragraph with fill in the blanks. I swear I had not seen half of the option words before. (when discussing it with classmates later, they agreed they had no idea) This part did not go so well, I am hoping for 3 in 10.

Then there was telling time. I am so bad with the numbers. Then I could not remember is time is masculine, feminine or neutral. Only numbers 1-4 change those ways, but naturally all the questions were about times between one and three. There was a lot of guessing involved but it might not turn out to bad.

The last page was grammar. I would not normally say such mean things, but I was thinking some terrible words about my teacher when I saw the last page. I know if the word was supposed to be the masculine, feminine or neutral version but I had no idea which word that would be. I was so angry.

All this with Kasper sitting next to me asking things like: why didn't I bring the black marker. At least he was whispering but it was still distracting.

One guy in my class said the test was not so bad, but this is his third time taking the course, so it should not count. By now he should know the answers.

2 comments:

  1. Experience tought me that when a teacher says a test will *only* cover certain things - I assume (s)he is wrong.

    I still haven't figured if it's because the teachers are badly informed (i.e. didn't make the test themselves) or if they just love to throw surprises at their students and see how they squirm.

    Congrats on your first test - no matter how it went.

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  2. I see where you are coming from, I have met made teachers like this before, but usually we are tested on units and the questions do not stray from that unit, so people know what is coming. Instead of knowing a little bit of everything you learn each unit, one at a time, really well. Then at the end of the course a final exam tests everything or random things.

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