Los Exámenes de Español

By now, if you're brain hasn't been diluted with all of the political sewage in the news or been dulled by the standards of No Child Left Behind, you've probably figured out that I am taking a Spanish class. In an attempt to share the successes and failures of learning a new language, I am making available my exams for your viewing pleasure.

I shall post each one here as I get them returned. I have already taken the first two exams and posted them to the right-hand side of the blog. Each thumbnail will lead you to a larger version to reveal my grade and excellent handwriting skills.

The class will be given an exam after each chapter has been finished. We should have a total of eight exams this semester and they should all be the same format. The exams are one page, front and back with fill-in-the-blanks or circle-the-right-answer type of questions. They remind me of early high school or middle school worksheets but I suppose the professor knows what he's doing.

I didn't do as well as I had hoped on the first exam, but I have my reasons. 1) This was the first exam given and I had no clue as to the format. It was deceptively simple looking and almost too easy. So easy looking that I overthought a lot of the questions. 2) I had been on vacation the week prior and was busy up until the day of the test. While I "studied" down at the beach, you can imagine how greatly embedded in my brain the material was. Suffice it to say, I was not in a Spanish mindset whilst taking the test. For example: the "plurals" section of the first test. As I was writing down my answers I knew and told myself the rule of plurals (if the word ends in a vowel add "s"; if the word ends in a consonant add "es") but ignored it out of brain fatigue and apathy.

The second exam seemed harder and it took me longer, but I emerged hoping my old pattern would hold true. Whenever an exam felt difficult I would end up doing well on it. If the exam felt easy, I would do worse. The pattern held.

HOORAY FOR LEARNING!!!