Ich habe meine A1 Deutschprüfung bestanden. Ich habe nicht nur bestanden, sondern 100 von 100 Punkte erreichen. Man muss in jedem Teil mindestens 60 Prozent erzielen, wenn man die Prüfung bestanden. Es gibt fünf mögliche Bewertungen. Am höchsten ist “sehr gut” (90-100). Aber ich weiß nicht, ob ich eine sehr gute Entscheidung über das Sprachniveau machte – vielleicht konnte ich die A2 Prüfung auch bestanden? Vor sechs Monaten wusste ich nicht, wie meine Deutschsprachkentnisse entwicklen würden.
I passed my A1 German exam. I didn’t just pass, but got 100 of 100 points. One must score at least 60 percent in each part of the exam to pass. There are five possible grades. The highest is “very good” (90-100). However, I don’t know if I made a “very good” decision about which level of the exam to take – maybe I could have passed the A2 exam. Six months ago, I didn’t know how my German skills would develop.
This is in general an issue with exams where candidates must decide what level to enter themselves at: I’ve run into this before for music, and also with German. It’s a shame that the Goethe-Institut (and as far as I know, other alternatives like the telc) exams aren’t generally equipped to provide assessment at other grades for very strong, or alternatively, just-unsatisfactory performances. This is less of an issue with the Cambridge English qualifications – in general, candidates can also obtain a grade N + 1 or N – 1 result when taking the exam for grade N if they, respectively, score close to full marks or just miss the passing mark.
I made the decision on which exam to take about 6 months ago – the decision was between A1 and A2. I started by looking at the model papers available from the Goethe-Institut. I think my opinion at the time was that at that point, I could mostly smoothly navigate the A1; A2 would be a struggle, though there were still four months to the exam. The speaking section of A2 would, in particular, have been a struggle then; I think it would still be difficult if I had to do it now. I think I tried out the reading and listening sections of both papers in September last year, and scored 83% on A1 and 57% on A2. I’ve tried out the B1 level papers more recently for reading (and the telc grammar/sentence construction ones as well) and have been able to fumble my way through with about 80 percent, though of course it has been six months since then!
The European Council does publish a self-assessment rubric to help distinguish these levels, but I find the “can-do” descriptors a little vague and, more importantly, difficult for me to confidently assess. I’d generally be confident with most of the A2 descriptors now, and five months ago I think understanding would be at A2 while production (speaking and writing) would be somewhere in between A1 and A2. However, there still exist interpretations where I wouldn’t necessarily be confident of my ability at the A2 level. Consider the descriptor for spoken interaction, which includes “I can handle very short social exchanges, even though I can’t usually understand enough to keep the conversation going myself”. Many of my social interactions with friends involve puns, humour and sarcasm which I might completely miss if delivered in German. I don’t think this is part of the expectation at A2, but it isn’t explicitly stated.
I was somewhat risk-averse and picked A1, figuring that I would get this out of the way and I could still take A2 subsequently, or alternatively jump straight to B1. As mentioned, I think my German skills developed more than I expected over the next few months, perhaps because I spent more time doing self-study. This isn’t a bad result at all, but something like this instead of say an 85 or 91 really did make me think if A2 would have been the better decision. In any case, I can’t take it back, and the improvements to my skill level remain. (It is possible that I might have developed my skills further if I did the A2 exam in January, as I would need to push myself through catch-up classes or work, but it would also have been considerably more stressful.)
