Due to my tutor's persuasion for me and my classmate to join the Runme Shaw Cup 2007 (also known as the Alliance Francaise Best Student Award), I reluctantly participated in the event. This competion has 2 kinds of tests: one written and the other, an interview session.
Last year when I participated for the fist time, the written test was just a personal essay (of about 500 words or so) and it's quite easy (provided you write it in a coherent and grammatically correct manner). I managed to get third for the written test and fourth for the overall competition (after adding up the scores for both tests).
This year however, I was caught off-guard in the written tests. Firstly it comprises of a 4 mini tests marathon starting with a dictation test, cloze passage, written essay and a 50 questions quiz on French trivia. All these is written in the rules and regulation form but I just simply took it for granted. After a not so good start for the dictation test, I was simply blown away in the other tests due to its difficulty level (more in terms of comprehension and vocabulary skills). In the written essay section, I could not understand a particular instruction such that I left the whole section blank!! Argh!!! Then the 50 questions French trivia quiz, I just whacked out the answers by randomly selecting the choices in the given multiple choice answers. Who would remember quotes from Molière, Dantes, Voltaire, etc or who would watch French classical comedies, plays, operas, etc... Those things do not interest me as the level of difficulty is extremely high. Like what my wife Azlina told me, these extremely technical details killed the joy of learning a foreign language. To me, I learn French so that I could communicate well in that language when I go to France or other Francophone countries. I know that to learn a foreign language, you will have to be immersed in it's culture, literature, history, etc. But certain things just don't interest me...
Looks like my chaces of winning a prize in this year's Runme Shaw Cup is going down the drains.
PS: I didn't go for the interview test on Saturday after a bad day for the written tests on Friday.
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