English exam

[anon]

Had one today. Sadly had to skip today's uni class as the exam was only exactly at the same time I'm supposed to be there.

Everyone looked like "oh, this is so fucked", but I found it to be extremely easy. It came in four parts - one, read this story and circle the right answers; two, pick one of these topics and write an essay about it; three, pick the right word to fill the blanks in this text; four, rewrite these sentences with the words we give you while they still mean the same. All of them (except the essay) took me no more than 10 minutes, probably less.

Passing that, and everything else that comes afterwards, will result in me getting a professorate degree. I've already had English classes in primary school (always performed excellently as far as marks are concerned) and I also went to a separate English school for a more intensive course. It was supposed to last six years, but I looked at the program for each one of them and thought "I know this and this". So I did two exams to prove that (got 9.5/10 on each), and saved myself two years of going there. The stuff was apparently hard and many guys had trouble with it, but I never studied a thing and passed every test with at least an 8, often between 9 and 10. In the final course everyone was 17 or 18 years old, and I was 13

I'm not bragging, and I don't consider myself to be perfectly skilled, as that is not the case. I make mistakes sometimes, just like everyone else. However, to me it'd appear either the educational level on those sites I attended was awful (and they're supposed to be one of the best available), or I have some sort of "natural talent".

The latter case would be awesome - but I'm not being as lucky with the mathematics and physics part of my systems engineering career.

[Pickle]

Still i don't study english exams (last one put infront of me by goverment and i had got 91/100 on it) and i pass them easly. Honestly the part i strugle is only vocabulary. Even you are superb student you should work vocabulary. By the way what about third language? German maybe :)

[anon]

and i pass them easly.

Honestly the part i strugle is only vocabulary. Even you are superb student you should work vocabulary.

I'll give you that one. I don't always understand every word in those texts...

By the way what about third language? German maybe :)

Yeah, then I'd be able to understand all that TH/ToG drama, and my postcount would go up to 50000 once I acquire basic writing skills.

I chose French when I signed up in high school, thought it'd be a good idea since I was doing well in English back then. I did fine in the tests, but to be frank I haven't learned almost anything.

[Pickle]

Honestly what could be the third language? Russian, Chineese, German.. Your choice will depend on your job or there can be some other factors?

[anon]

I was going to go for German but heard the grammar is a bitch. Chinese doesn't look easy either, but an aunt of mine managed it.

And Russian is the language of half another forum I post on, coincidentally...

[Pickle]

You are between german and russian i think you should choose chinese :)

[Instab]

You are between german and russian i think you should choose chinese :)

[Mihai]

Glad to see you're doing good anon. But English is easy, especially if you write everyday in English on SBI
For the third language I would recommend Romanian
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Kidding
But think this way: what is the third most common language besides English and Spanish( which you know) on Earth?

[anon]

Glad to see you're doing good anon. But English is easy, especially if you write everyday in English on SBI

SB-I plus at least half a dozen other forums. I guess that's good training.

For the third language I would recommend Romanian

Yeah, then I'd be able to read Torrents.ro.

But think this way: what is the third most common language besides English and Spanish( which you know) on Earth?

Chinese?

There are actually more Mandarin speakers than English ones in the world.

[Mihai]

Chinese?

There are actually more Mandarin speakers than English ones in the world.

True but how many of them actually work in your field of expertise?

[anon]

True but how many of them actually work in your field of expertise?

We have a few .cn cheaters her- oh, wait, that's not what you meant.

[Extraterrestrial]

I'm having troubles with English especially vocabulary and punctuation.
I recently found this e-learning software ( Cambridge English Vocabulary UDS ) and I've been using for quite a while and it's pretty good.
Btw, can you share your experience in learning English using the internet?

[anon]

Btw, can you share your experience in learning English using the internet?

Trial and error with a bit of luck, I guess. Initially I did stuff like reading news articles and also lurking forums. The good thing about people who write with proper grammar on the Internet is that you can improve yours by simple reading. You can also learn expressions and idioms that way.

After a while of reading I thought I'd post myself. And so was it. People understood me and didn't tell me my English was bad or anything, so I supposed I was doing pretty well. I obviously did make mistakes. Sometimes I look at those early posts and ask myself "how the hell did I end up writing that"?

These days we have YouTube and high-speed means of downloading. They can be a blessing for learning stuff. Something else that helps, specially with pronunciation, is watching subtitled movies. I've always been a fan of subtitles because of that and enjoying the original voices.

[anon]

Passed. They didn't tell me my mark, though. The oral exam was around 1.5 hours ago. Was shown a picture of two guys playing the guitar (one looked like Barry White and the other was almost Elton John ) and asked to talk about that. Then some personal questions, that kind of stuff.

[Mihai]

Passed. They didn't tell me my mark, though. The oral exam was around 1.5 hours ago. Was shown a picture of two guys playing the guitar (one looked like Barry White and the other was almost Elton John ) and asked to talk about that. Then some personal questions, that kind of stuff.

So waste of time for you