Exam Update 1#

Today I had my first exam: TEXTPRODUCTION

It felt a bit surreal when I got up this morning. I have been preparing for these exams since last August and today, the first big day has finally arrived. However, I did not really prepare for this exam today and I glad I did not spent more time on it.

Usually you are advised to learn as much as possible about British and American Culture as you need background knowledge to answer the essay questions. However, the exam topic today was:

Fighting CRIME in the UK and the US

Task 1: Write an article for a student magazine discussing: "Asbos (Anti-social behaviour orders): A model for Germany? Keep in mind that your readers do not have any background knowledge on Asbos. (300 words)

Task 2: Imagine you are an exchange student in the USA. Use the statistics on crime rates in the USA and write an informal email to a friend analyzing the statistics and at the end give your own opinion on the findings. (250 words)

Task 3: Write an essay on either

"The Causes and effects of crime and how to combat them?" (400 words)

or

"The right to bear arms should be part of the basic law in Germany" (450 words)

Great, isn't it. I did not have any knowledge on Asbos or why it could be a model for Germany or not. The text commenting on Asbos was quite ironic and definitely contra Asbos. The statistics went on over 3 pages - and I had to analyse them in 250 words including all the email bla, bla, bla (hello, how are you, yours,....). Oh, you had to answer all the questions. The word count was the worst. This email was horror and in the end I had to shorten my mail by 100 words!

I don't think I performed very well, at least I did not like the stuff I had written, my English was horrible, more like DENGLISH. Okay, nothing to be done about it. So, let's look forward to the next exam, which will be on Wednesday - Translation English-German.

I just hope that at least you had a good day today.