Goethe-Zertifikat C1 : mündliche Prüfung

For those English-speakers taking the exam “Goethe-Zertifikat C1” I wanted to share my experience at the oral part of the exam and how I prepared for it.

I took the writing exam on 19th January, and the oral exam (mündliche Prüfung) was at 5 p.m. next day. Since the second part of the oral exam is conducted in pair, I teamed up with my classmate from the preparation course and practiced together about 3 to 4 times before the date of exam.

Exam

When you arrive at the test location, an examiner invites you into an empty room at the scheduled time. You sit away from your exam partner and are not supposed to talk for the next 10 minutes. You are given sheets of paper with a theme for your own dissertation and another theme for discussion with your partner. You need to plan what you are going to talk about. You are not supposed to look at the notes during your dissertation and talk free. So it’s very very important that you train yourself to memorize all the points you are about to discuss by heart.

Then you are called into another room where two examiners are waiting for you. Our examiners were a man and a woman, well dressed and very kind. I was nervous at the beginning, but they relaxed me by asking questions about my profession and the reason for taking this exam. During this initial conversation, I was told that no points are deducted even if you make a mistake. So I could rather talk freely.

The first part of the oral exam is an individual dissertation for 4 minutes. The theme given to me was “Gewaltdarstellung im Fernsehen” (display of violence on TV) which I found very interesting but difficult to talk about. I was hoping my theme would be something like “berufstätige Mütter” (working mothers), “Aufstiegschancen für Frauen” (promotion prospects for women) or “Stress bei der Arbeit” (stress at work), because you read a lot about these topics on newspaper and it’s easy to compare with Japan.

Within the dissertation I needed to talk about the following aspects:

• Beispiele von Gewaltdarstellungen im Fernsehen oder Film (examples of the display of violence on TV or in film)
• Gründe für Gewaltdarstellungen (reason for the display of violence)
• Argument für die Begrenzung solcher Darstellung (argument for limiting the display of violence)
• Argument für die Liberalisierung (argument for liberalising the display of violence)
• persönliche Meinung zu diesem Thema (personal opinion about this theme)

What was so different from what I’ve been practicing was:

1. There was no comparison to my home country.
2. To talk about “the reason” was never on my exercise book.
3. even if you are against the liberalisation of violence in media, you had to talk for it.

When you and your partner finish the individual parts, you move onto the second part of the oral exam, the discussion with a partner for 7 minutes. We were given a list of 13 items and asked to choose 3 items to bring to an isolated island. Through the discussion, we were expected to analyse the pros and cons of different items. I guess we did not have much time left, so the examiner asked us to wrap up with 3 items in the middle of our discussion. This part of the exam was relatively easy, because even without a through preparation, you can scam through the list and decide what you want to say spontaneously. We decided on ein Buch (a book), eine Taschenlampe (a flashlight) and ein Messer (a knife). At the end, the examiner pointed out that a flashlight is useless when the battery goes out. I agreed to him, but my partner snapped back, saying it’s solar-powered. What a smart one!

Just so you know, everyone gets a different theme at the exam, so asking around other themes is useless.

So here comes what I did to prepare for the exam.

Preparation

Since 2 weeks before the exam, my partner and I started practicing once a week. We timed each other, so we can talk within the given time, 4 minutes for the single dissertation and 7 minutes for the partner work.

1 week before the exam, I asked my German-speaking hubby to practice with me every night. We used the sample questions from the text book “Prüfungstraining” von Cornelsen Verlag Berlin which was a great help. A lot of questions in the exam come from this book, and my instructor from the German language school also recommended it. I could not have done better without this book, and €17.25 is a small investment if you want to pass the exam.

You can also see sample exam from the Goethe-Institute website: http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/pba/bes/gc1/mat/enindex.htm

On the day of exam, I wrote down all the possible words that can be on the theme in the following categories: Umwelt (environment), Arbeitsleben (professional life), Familienleben (family life), Forschung (research), Wissenshaft (economy), Kriminalität (delinquency) und Ausbildung (education). Then I went over all the sample questions from the text book and my class, timing my dissertation with a stop watch and looking at the mirror for my facial expression and gesture. On previous night, I asked Peter how he memorized his dissertation when he applied for his scholarship to study in NYC. He said he practised his presentation so many times that he could even recite it while he is ironing his shirts or swimming in a pool. However, my dissertation is hard to practice beforehand, since the theme is given only on the day of exam, and you only have 10 minutes to memorize it. So I memorized few useful sentences beforehand such as:

- Beginning

In meinem Vortrag spreche ich über das Thema…. (In my dissertation, I will talk about the theme…)

- Thema to main issue

Zum Thema möchte ich mit einem Beispiel aus meiner eigener Erfahrung beginnen…. (For this thema, I would like to start with an exmaple from my own experience….)

- Argumentation

Argumente für ….. ist zum Beispiel…. (Arguments for is for example…)
Argumente gegen ….. ist zum Beispiel….(Arguments againt is for example…)

- End

Zum Schluss möchte ich feststellen, dass….. (In conclusion, I would like to point out that…)

I kept each sentence as simple as possible, because I will surely make a mistake with a longer one. I also tried to use simple words instead to longer words, so I can pronounce better and avoid stumbling on words.

When I held my first dissertation in German at level B1, I was so nervous that my hands were shaking and I forgot most of the parts in the middle of the presentation. In order not to be nervous, I told myself many times the reason for taking this exam and how much time, effort, and money I’ve invested in it. That automatically made my head up and kept my shoulders back.

That was all advise I can give for the oral part of the C1 exam. I have not received the result yet, but I am just glad that I finally made it despite test anxiety. I hope my information was helpful to those of you who will be taking the exam in the future. If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to write a comment at this post.

* As a result I received 23 out of 25. Not bad for somebody with extreme stage fright, no?