I have been meaning to reach the C2 level in English for years and I might finally be getting closer. A couple of weeks ago I paid the CPE examination fees, so I suppose I am going to have to do it. The CPE exam is freaking difficult, but I am quite good at this, so I don't know, I think I should do it and see what happens. If I fail, I fail.
The exam consists of five parts which are supposed to assess five skills, namely reading, writing, knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, listening and speaking. I have about 25 days to prepare myself for it and I don't have a clear plan yet, which, to be honest, worries me a little.
If I am to be realistic, I am aware that my English is unlikely to improve drastically in the next few weeks, but I suppose there are some things that could help me be much more successful on the day of the exam. Firstly, I think that it might be a good idea to start speaking English at home, since even though I live in the UK I don't get to speak a lot to natives because I am neither working nor studying (here).
I just realised that writing without a purpose is not as easy as I had initially thought. I intended to start writing tonight about no specific topic, just to see if I could. I mean, as a way to prepare for the writing paper I decided that it would be great if I managed to write at least a thousand words every day. I honestly don't know how many words a thousand words are, but what I do know is that I am going to have to write between six hundred and seven hundred and under pressure, so I'd better start practising.
I am a physics student, so I am kind of good at maths and I know that a thousand words a day for 25 days is 25,000 words, which sounds like a lot of words.
It seems it was five hours ago when I started to write this, but it was only one hour ago. On the day of the exam I'll have two hours to write two complex texts with specific formats about random topics and I just don't think this is the right pace. I suppose this should not surprise me, I mean, how could I expect to be able to write fast and well in a foreign language with no practice at all? I hope 25,000 words will suffice.
My listening skills are not going to improve overnight either. It is weird how I understand some people perfectly, especially Americans, and then there are others, like Scottish people, that I don't understand at all. Sometimes I can't even tell whether they are speaking English, which I think is very sad. Anyway, I have met some Spanish speakers I couldn't understand either and it's my native language, so maybe it's not so serious after all. I just hope that the people on the recordings on the day of the exam are from New York, New York, or at least not from Glasgow, Scotland. I mean, if it's not too much to ask.
This is being much more difficult than I had expected. A thousand words are a lot of words. But if I managed to write 25,000 words before the exam the reward would be enormous.
Another problem I may face is that, for some reason, this kind of English examinations tend to include obscure idioms and phrasal verbs which are supposed to be important to someone, I personally don't know to whom, but in my opinion they are just plain stupid. If I have been reading in English for ages and I have never found most of them, why should I waste my time learning them? I know, so I can pass the freaking exam and get the fancy certificate.
How awesome would it be to have the CPE under my belt? Very awesome. In fact, I don't think I know anyone who has it, so I suppose that that makes it even more awesome.
As I said before, a thousand words are a lot of words, so I think I'm just going to have to start telling stories or something, if I really intend to achieve my goal. What could I tell? Oh, I know. What about the story of that guy who decided to ring a random doorbell at 4 a.m.? OK. One night not long ago there was a guy in a Rambo costume wandering around Edinburgh city centre. It occurred to him that it could be funny to wake someone up at an ungodly hour and surprise them with a weird outfit. And it was funny indeed. You should have seen his face when I suddenly opened the door and kicked him away from my doorstep! John Rambo said he was sorry like fifty times in five seconds but I ignored him and chased him down the street like a fierce lion in order to catch him and teach him a lesson, but he was an excellent runner and managed to escape, luckily for him, though it might just have been the adrenaline.
I have written almost nine hundred words, which is a 90% of what I had planned, and I just clicked the save button for the first time. I'm just kidding, I'm not an idiot. Losing such a long text has to be awful. Anyway, my will is wavering and I need chocolate, so I'm just going to go the kitchen and get some. I hope it'll give me the energy to keep writing. I just need 22 words. Well, now that I think about it, 22 words are not so many. Maybe I should just stay here, keep writing and see how I reach today's thousand words. Done.
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