SPANISH - What did you think?

Cipango

Loved it personally!

Comprehensions were lovely and aural very slow!

What did ye think of it?

Depending on the blasted bell curve I think I'm in the runnings for an A or possibly B1

PARARORY

Yeah was a good paper , all the comprehensions were pretty easy , opinion pieces were pretty general and you could use some ideas from the text , note/diary was pretty simple - i did both and the dialogue was grand! Hopefully got the A with the easy aural!

anothernight

This is the first Spanish exam I've ever done so I don't know what the usual standard is like, but I found it very easy

I was surprised to see Haiti come up though, and also the fact that they said the European Union had 17 countries lol

Cook!eMonster

I did OL and was delighted with the paper. Only thing that may have brought me down was the oral

annainez

I don't usually know what to think about exams but I'm fairly sure I have an A in the bag!

Thought it was brilliant, aural was very slow!

But yes, stupid bell curve >:(

annainez

anothernight wrote: »

This is the first Spanish exam I've ever done so I don't know what the usual standard is like, but I found it very easy
l

How come it's your first? Did you do an oral exam?

anothernight

annainez wrote: »

How come it's your first? Did you do an oral exam?

Oh I never did Spanish in school as it's my first language. Just sitting the exam. And yeah I did have an oral exam =]

muffinz

easiest spanish exam ive ever had!! the first and second comps. were easy peasy, the 2 smalls ones are usually my worst but wow they were easy!! "when should u wear grey glasses" and then "conducir"... wow easy much its usually an abstract word you wouldnt know!!

wanted to shoot the people doing the tape they were so slow!
for the opinion i did the internet for the greatest invention of the last century!!

im so happy hopefully an A1/2

annainez

anothernight wrote: »

Oh I never did Spanish in school as it's my first language. Just sitting the exam. And yeah I did have an oral exam =]

Aw lucky A1 in the bag so! I love Spanish, been working on my spoken loads, I don't care about written for leaving but it comes naturally to me so I do well in the written too. Where are you from do you mind me asking? (I have a slight obsession with Spain haha)

anothernight

muffinz wrote: »

wanted to shoot the people doing the tape they were so slow!
for the opinion i did the internet for the greatest invention of the last century!!

The internet! Why didn't I think of that? I spent a minute or so trying to think of the best one (other than cars) before deciding to do the second option because I remembered some random news item about "la polución sonora" years ago

annainez wrote: »

Aw lucky A1 in the bag so! I love Spanish, been working on my spoken loads, I don't care about written for leaving but it comes naturally to me so I do well in the written too. Where are you from do you mind me asking? (I have a slight obsession with Spain haha)

I'm from Madrid. Yup, handy

Cipango

I was freaking out this morning because I had heard that French and german were both "impossible" so I was sure Spanish was going to follow this trend

anothernight

Cipango wrote: »

I was freaking out this morning because I had heard that French and german were both "impossible" so I was sure Spanish was going to follow this trend

I don't know about German, but I didn't find anything hard in French at all. Maybe it was just me
In my class there was quite a range of opinions about it, no consensus.

Anyway at least you did well in Spanish

muffinz

yeah i had read in the paper that the german paper was hard for native speakers, so i was like shiiiiiiit!! but it was grand

Melissa X

Thought it was a dream,was expecting harder comprehensions!Very nice paper overall

NR

muffinz wrote: »

easiest spanish exam ive ever had!! the first and second comps. were easy peasy, the 2 smalls ones are usually my worst but wow they were easy!! "when should u wear grey glasses" and then "conducir"

I hope you didn't actually write down "conducir" though.

I was very happy with the exam but I waffled a bit in the opinion pieces, which I thought where a little bit weird. In terms of the Aural, is it just me or does it seem like the people who set the Spanish exams have a thing for astronauts and space?

muffinz

NR wrote: »

I hope you didn't actually write down "conducir" though.

course i didnt, i wrote "people should wear them while driving"

JoeyBuddy

Pleasantly surprised. Going in hoping for a max of C1, but now I feel I deserve around a B.

Comprehensions were possibly the easiest I've ever done, and same with the tape.
Opinion was crap, but then again, I was expecting it to be.
Really pleased though.

NR

muffinz wrote: »

course i didnt, i wrote "people should wear them while driving"

You scared me for a minute there.

You know the two sentances that you have to word differently in Spanish? What did they even mean, they were lost on me

JoeyBuddy

NR wrote: »

You scared me for a minute there.

You know the two sentances that you have to word differently in Spanish? What did they even mean, they were lost on me

The first one was something like 'It's of upmost importance" or something.

Aoiferz

I LOVED that Spanish paper. Usually I find the Aural really hard but I was able to at least get an answer for all of the questions. I was nervous that it'd be a hard paper as it seems the SEC are having a laugh with some of them but I reckon they left us alone becuase there's so few people who take spanish

ihavequestions

haha its funny how little people do Spanish!!! 20 comments so far on this thread on the exam was this morn! All the other "aftermath" threads have this many replies 5mins after the exam!!!

I thought it was sooo nice like seriously, nicest paper I have ever seen! Two things I predicted were old people and technology and they were the two long comprehensions

I did the second essay, talked about people communicating non-stop through internet, phones etc cant stay quiet, news telling us about world problems -that its not being hidden from us like it used to be, and the fact that people with problems like derpression and addiction feel they dont have to keep quiet about it, like the old days, and get help! Would that be ok?

Tape was a dream!!! Hati.... papers ovbiously aren't set when we all thought they were!!!

Roll on August 18th

cli2931

Yep that was definately one of the nicest papers I've seen for Spanish in years! Was so happy when I looked at it!!!

PARARORY

Some of those words were just tricky , for the one about "recibe su energia" what did people put? Think i put "esta alimentado " .. por baterias" - Doesnt that mean it is charged/fed by batteries. Left out the batteries bit of course!

Also was proponer = apoytar (something like that)?

NR

PARARORY wrote: »

Some of those words were just tricky , for the one about "recibe su energia" what did people put? Think i put "esta alimentado " .. por baterias" - Doesnt that mean it is charged/fed by batteries. Left out the batteries bit of course! ?

I said "esta alimentado" because I assumed it meant something similar to "it's powered", which is it same as "receives it's energy"

PARARORY

I said "esta alimentado" because I assumed it meant something similar to "it's powered", which is it same as "receives it's energy"

Deadly , thats what I said! Aural was so nice as well , the weather was much easier than other years!

In the aural when it asked did yas put down that Ms de la vega she was the vice president of the spanish government?

Just thinking back on other spanish exams - definitely our comprehensions were much easier in general - especially the 2 little ones which can be tricky sometimes!

ihavequestions

PARARORY wrote: »

Some of those words were just tricky , for the one about "recibe su energia" what did people put? Think i put "esta alimentado " .. por baterias" - Doesnt that mean it is charged/fed by batteries. Left out the batteries bit of course!

Also was proponer = apoytar (something like that)?

Ya I said apoytar!
I said something that looked like propulsion for the first one tho cant remember exactly!

PARARORY

Crap! Just looked it up , the equivalent of proponer = is plantear.

I said it was apoytar because it looked more correct!

ihavequestions

Fcuk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! was gonna say it....
At least its only 1mark!

NR

PARARORY wrote: »

In the aural when it asked did yas put down that Ms de la vega she was the vice president of the spanish government?

Ah that's what it was! I was thrown by that completely and got distracted and ended up writing that the most important cargo being flown to Haiti was "two zebras" because that's all I heard

PARARORY

Fcuk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! was gonna say it....
At least its only 1mark!

I know how you feel! I was so close to putting "plantear" but then it reminded me of trees and seeds so I decided against it lol... Ha screw this im not gonna check any of the other answers before I realise I lsot stupid marks!


Paper is up http://www.examinations.ie/archive/exampapers/2010/LC012ALP000EV.pdf !

anothernight

PARARORY wrote: »

Some of those words were just tricky , for the one about "recibe su energia" what did people put? Think i put "esta alimentado " .. por baterias" - Doesnt that mean it is charged/fed by batteries. Left out the batteries bit of course!

I said that, but put "por baterías" in brackets. Took me a moment to decide what to say, because none of them was really suitable for it at all considering the technological topic ("alimentar" taken out of context just didn't sound right) and I should know since I speak the language fluently.

I did notice some little details that surprised me a lot. The paper referred to old people as "personas viejas" once, which just sounded very derogatory/non-PC. The term they should've used was "personas mayores". Also the woman on the CD said that instructions were written on the paper, which sounds fine in English but in Spanish it made me cringe: "en el papel del exámen" should've been "en el exámen".

angel93

I did the pass paper and loved it.
in the aural does anyone know where the survey was taken?
that was the only thing i had trouble with

anothernight

angel93 wrote: »

I did the pass paper and loved it.
in the aural does anyone know where the survey was taken?
that was the only thing i had trouble with

Omg so annoying!!! I can't remember it and the examiner offered me the CD to take home. >_< I didn't take it. Bahh sorry =/

Cook!eMonster

angel93 wrote: »

I did the pass paper and loved it.
in the aural does anyone know where the survey was taken?
that was the only thing i had trouble with

In the city of granada? Thats what i got anyways?

ihavequestions

PARARORY wrote: »

I know how you feel! I was so close to putting "plantear" but then it reminded me of trees and seeds so I decided against it lol... Ha screw this im not gonna check any of the other answers before I realise I lsot stupid marks!


Paper is up http://www.examinations.ie/archive/exampapers/2010/LC012ALP000EV.pdf !

OMG that is exactly why I didnt put it down either!!!!!

fauxshow

The aural was lovely, but I feel it was too easy and now I'm lulled into a false sense of security... they'll adjust the marking scheme to make it really bitchy to prevent grade inflation. Last year's French had a really easy aural too but the marking scheme was revised like a dozen times to prevent too many people doing too well / too bad... so they might go in the aural, instead of two marks for each question in one exercise, award six marks for the hard question and two marks for the easier ones or something. Or else you only get half marks for leaving a small bit of detail out etc.

One of the translation exercises for the opinion was a little bit tricky, it was the one that began with 'sueno' does anyone know what it is exactly?

anothernight

fauxshow wrote: »

The aural was lovely, but I feel it was too easy and now I'm lulled into a false sense of security... they'll adjust the marking scheme to make it really bitchy to prevent grade inflation. Last year's French had a really easy aural too but the marking scheme was revised like a dozen times to prevent too many people doing too well / too bad... so they might go in the aural, instead of two marks for each question in one exercise, award six marks for the hard question and two marks for the easier ones or something. Or else you only get half marks for leaving a small bit of detail out etc.

One of the translation exercises for the opinion was a little bit tricky, it was the one that began with 'sueno' does anyone know what it is exactly?

"Sueño con ver una carretera llena de coches y la única cosa que se oye es el sonido de los neumáticos."

I dream of seeing a road full of cars and the only thing that can be heard is the sound of the tyres.

muffinz

for that "i dream...." i wrote numatics, but i have no idea what numatics are xD do you think ill get the marks?
and the person who wrote "two zebras"... your epic xD whats zebra in spanish!?
oh and for the writing spanish in a different form, for old people i wrote "gente de edad" because i forgot what vieja meant, i thought it meant trip and i was like why are they talking about trips?! duuuuur.

anothernight

muffinz wrote: »

for that "i dream...." i wrote numatics, but i have no idea what numatics are xD do you think ill get the marks?
and the person who wrote "two zebras"... your epic xD whats zebra in spanish!?
oh and for the writing spanish in a different form, for old people i wrote "gente de edad" because i forgot what vieja meant, i thought it meant trip and i was like why are they talking about trips?! duuuuur.

I don't know if it'll get you the marks, but I wrote "wheels" because I couldn't for the life of me remember the word "tyres" >_< Don't worry too much about it. I doubt there was many marks going for that =]

Zebra in Spanish is Cebra, pronounced Theh-bra.

muffinz

anothernight wrote: »

I don't know if it'll get you the marks, but I wrote "wheels" because I couldn't for the life of me remember the word "tyres" >_< Don't worry too much about it. I doubt there was many marks going for that =]

Zebra in Spanish is Cebra, pronounced Theh-bra.

argh yeah i hate when i blank on a word in an exam and thanks for that

s0ur_cherry

why the hell would zebras be the most important cargo for a disaster in haiti! i said medicine of some sort?!

ihavequestions

i said first aid..... I said wheels too... was a complete guess!!

anothernight

Iirc it was a tonne of medicine. Not sure how much detail they wanted but I don't think they wanted the exact amount.

Cook!eMonster

anothernight wrote: »

Iirc it was a tonne of medicine. Not sure how much detail they wanted but I don't think they wanted the exact amount.

Couldn't of been a tonne, on the OL paper it said how many tonnes, 12, 120, or 1200?

anothernight

Cook!eMonster wrote: »

Couldn't of been a tonne, on the OL paper it said how many tonnes, 12, 120, or 1200?

I think it said "una tonelada de medicinas". Probably said some other number I can't remember very well I only actually remember the word "tonne/s"
I'm pretty confident I got that right though in my exam.

fisgon

Just had a look at the Spanish paper online. I'm a teacher, not a student, and am very familiar with the previous years' papers, and that was certainly the easiest one that I've seen in a decade. The dialogue was extraordinary, practically all present tense, just one subjunctive, no preterite or imperfect, no conditional. The comprehensions were almost devoid of tricky questions and I also noticed that last year's aural was much slower than before, and it seems from the comments that they continued that this year. I don't know if it's a policy to make the Spanish easier, but some of the questions on the Higher Level could have been on the Ordinary Level paper.

Glad everyone here felt they did well, just be thankful it was this year you were doing Spanish!

MariaBabii

It was 12 tonnes of medicine

muffinz

MariaBabii wrote: »

It was 12 tonnes of medicine

phew :pac:
pretty sure i did really well in the tape, the only thing i wasnt brilliant at was the weather as usual, but even the words werent as hard this year
and i didnt get who mrs. de la vega was, i kept zoning out, i heard president so i wrote down "president of the campaign" as a guess -.-

NR

s0ur_cherry wrote: »

why the hell would zebras be the most important cargo for a disaster in haiti! i said medicine of some sort?!

I'll have you know that Ireland sent three zebras to Haiti after the earthquake and I think France sent eight.

S Connor

I know you are all propably young people doing leaving cert Spanish at school. As a mature person I decided to do it because I go to Spain every year and wanted to know some Spanish. As I only had 25 lessons over the course of a year and had never did any exams before I did ordinary level. I found it ok and think I did well. Only thing I had to think about was the letter. We had to discribe a shop?? Not the usual letter about Spanish friends visiting you or you visiting them ect. Have to agree aural was very easy. Bit too slow actually, I also wanted to kick him ha ha. Was def 12 tonnes of medicine and the city someone was asking about was Granada. Who knows I might do higher level next year.

NR

S Connor wrote: »

I know you are all propably young people doing leaving cert Spanish at school. As a mature person I decided to do it because I go to Spain every year and wanted to know some Spanish. As I only had 25 lessons over the course of a year and had never did any exams before I did ordinary level. I found it ok and think I did well. Only thing I had to think about was the letter. We had to discribe a shop?? Not the usual letter about Spanish friends visiting you or you visiting them ect. Have to agree aural was very easy. Bit too slow actually, I also wanted to kick him ha ha. Was def 12 tonnes of medicine and the city someone was asking about was Granada. Who knows I might do higher level next year.

Yeah I noticed the shop thing, I don't do the letter anyway but it was a bit of a dodgy one. I did find the "However, despite" bit in the dialogue tricky, but that was it really.

And I stand by it, two zebras was the most important cargo on the plane.