The Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom, Part 2

My Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom from the Goethe Institut

If you’ve ever taken a standardized test outside of a typical class, you know what it’s like. You show up at a school or testing facility, probably one you’ve never been to before. It’s probably early in the morning, and you probably don’t know many, or any, of the other people taking the exam. You’ve paid a large registration fee and spent quite a bit of time studying. You’re double- and triple-checking everything: Have I sharpened my number 2 pencils? Or are they accepting only black ink on this one? Where’s my ID? Am I heading to the right room in the right building?

This is how my C2 exam at the Goethe Institut in Berlin began. I arrived ridiculously early, which is an appropriate strategy when you rely on the notoriously late and inexplicably cancellation-prone S-Bahn for transportation. (You’ve heard that German trains are pünktlich and efficient? Cute.) I sat around in a cafeteria-like waiting room for about 45 minutes. There were pastries and a large coffee dispenser, but I got the impression these were for employees, not test takers. I didn’t ask.

From then on, it was your typical language test. There was a reading section. There was a writing section. There was a listening section—one which I was pretty sure I had bombed, not because I didn’t understand what was being said in the recorded conversations, but because the questions on the test itself were quite tricky. Trickiness, I suppose, was to be expected: this is the Goethe Institut’s most advanced test of German as a foreign language.

In the breaks between sections, I chatted with some of my fellow test takers. As is often the case in my German language learning experience here in Berlin, I was the only native English speaker among many Greeks, Russians, Italians, and various Latin Americans. Everyone seemed to have used the same test prep book from Hueber Verlag to prepare. Some people had even brought their copies along with them. One young woman from Italy said it was her second time taking the test. She had passed the first time, but she wanted to gain more percentage points. Scores for each section are printed on the certificates of those who pass.

I was given a time to return on the following day for my speaking portion. Again, I showed up very early. To make things worse, the Goethe Institut had moved my test time two hours back without informing me. I asked why I wasn’t called or e-mailed, but no one seemed to know. I was told to look on the bright side: at least my time slot hadn’t been moved two hours forward, causing me to miss the test and fail. This somehow didn’t make the waste of time any less boring. Even though this was a relatively commercial section of the Mitte district, it was too early in the morning for shops like Urban Outfitters or Uniqlo or the artisan absinthe boutique to be open.

My new exam time came and went. The examiners were running more than twenty minutes behind. I was beginning to feel more annoyed than nervous, though I’d started the day shaking with anxiety. Spontaneous oral exams have always been harder for me than reading or writing. Finally I was taken into yet another waiting room where I was given the topics for the presentation and debate, and I had several minutes to prepare notes.

The exam itself flew by—perhaps because the judges were rushing to get back on schedule, but I like to think it’s because they gained a clear picture of my abilities very quickly. I know my voice shook. I know I made several blunders. I always do. But I spoke as clearly and confidently as I could, using all the presentation and debate phraseology I’d practiced. (Dem stimme ich in jeder Hinsicht zu… Jetzt möchte ich den Fokus auf [X] legen… Man könnte einwenden, dass…) My examiners were laid back and kind, which put me at ease. They seemed impressed by my reasoning: without revealing my prompt, I will say that part of my presentation hinged on the topic of school choice and charters in the US, which I as a teacher know a lot about and have strong opinions on. I had to take a few shots in the dark on translating certain terms, but to my delight, my guesses were correct.

The certificate came in the mail about a week later. I had passed.

As expected, listening had been my weakest section, but not by a wide margin. I immediately sympathized with the Italian girl who wanted higher percentages despite already passing. Scores in the 70s clearly pass, according to the Goethe Institut’s metrics, which put the lowest passing grade at 60. The perfectionist in me nevertheless winced a little. Not enough to wince out another 300 euros and two days to take the test again, but still a wince.

The perfect score on the speaking section still puzzles me slightly because I know the way I speak is not perfect—I have a noticeable American accent, I said “auf” when I should’ve said “zu,” I said “uh” and hesitated when searching for a word or two—but I’ll take it.

I am proud of this achievement but I know I can’t rest on my laurels. I know I make mistakes. I know there are many, many things I don’t know how to say at all. Many of the things I can say, I still can’t express as eloquently as I can in English. There are some dialects I have trouble understanding. There is always more to learn, but I’m off to a very solid start.