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heifeng -



Quote:

Pinyin for most, but not all.

hey, roddy, i've been looking through that book recently and it seems like the words that don't
have pinyin are for the "practice" sets, and are listed in 50 single character and word sets, just
as they would be on the putonghua exam. For the most part everything else has pinyin though.



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heifeng -

Ok, Here is my write up for the CATTI level three consecutive interpretors exam: ( I reserve the
right to add more as I recover my memory and reflect more on it)

So the exam basically has 2 parts: zonghe, which is English listening comprehension and the Shili,
which is divided up like this: duihua: (20 pts), Eng=> Chi (40 points about 300 words), Chi=>
English (40 pts about 200 characters). We took the zonghe in the am, and the shili in the Pm.

I don't really need to comment too much on the zonghe since if someone is really interested in it
you can look up info here: www.catti.net.cn. Basically it is English listening comprehension were
you get some true and false questions and some A-D questions, fill in the blank of an article that
they read word for word, and then summarize in English an article that you hear. I had to take
this section..but I am assuming I am the only native speaker that took it~but Karma's evil and
I'll get to that at the end...[see below}

the Shili exam left me with the following impression:

Vocab: Nothing was really terribly hard, or not as hard as I thought it would be (class and
practice exams were harder), but you need to regularly read newspapers, know about the olympics,
about trade, the environment, current events...etc. If youdo, then you should be fine. I was
getting kinda nervous before the exam and memorized a ton of UN departments, and various US and
China Government Department/Ministry names...etc. They didn't pop up, but it was good to know them
once and for all. If you are NOT well read on such things then you will bump into problems. I
think the hardest thing they had was just talking about low carbon emissions and energy
efficiency, so they don't get really specialized, but general knowlege is important.If you get the
exam booklets prep materials, those are HARD! but very very very interesting, so I highly
recommend them as a tool to improve your Chinese studies, listening comprehension (gotta get the
tapes too though), etc. Otherwise you can look at the UN website and find some biligual articles
and such.

Numbers: You really can't bs with the numbers. In note taking (you only hear everthing once, the
longest segments are probably 3 sentences long, and then they give you time to record) you need to
take them down correctly, then you have to make sure you convert them correctly. I had practiced
this and have overcome my general number confusion I suffered from before, but I know didn't write
down some numbers in the Chi=> Eng section because to many came up at once..ughh. On some I didn't
get them to the last 'one's' place, so I just said more than 2 thousand or something~So definitely
lost some points there. Oddly NO number scame up in the Eng=> Chinese sections! drats! There
numbers probably are one of the areas that will hurt me in my score. I think I got a majority of
the numbers correct, but I think that when I interpreted some things that had percentage increases
and decreases my grammar and word choice had some issues. Note to myself and anyone else, make
sure you are very good with giving correct numbers and correctly expressing what you are trying to
say.... I should have definitely practiced this even more....(although to be honest I was dreaming
about number conversions all last week)

Speed: The general speed is OK. It's not super slow or anything (very 'near' to normal speaking
pace) and since it is an exam mainly for Chinese students the Chinese seemed faster than the
English to me, but it's just probably my inaccurate assessment.


Recording: In the duihua section the time they gave you to record was very quick so you couldn't
really think about it, you just had to go for it and interpret right away. In the other longer
sections the time is fairly long, but the people talking around you will get quiet towards the end
so somehow this ends up affecting your own speaking speed. However, there IS a bit of time to
first organize your thoughts and then speak, which helps a bit. Also you are 'permitted' to a
certain extent to listen to the person next to you. I mean you can't make it obvious, but if you
get stuck and can't remember what one of the details were you can listen a bit. However I got
stuck next to someone who would listen to my English and repeat me which threw me off so I had to
talk a bit lower hehe..

Paper: Oh, they give you 4 sheets of paper for notes which is more than adequate. I think I use 1
sheet both sides if I write small, but probably used about 2 sheets.

Scoring: I have no clue whatsoever. You need a 60 in the zonghe and shili section to pass.

Me: I think I did decent, if I were to give myself a grade based on my past practice exams I would
give myself a 65 in the Shili. Nothing great, but enough to scrape by. I'll report my score
later...unless it is really bad, then don't come asking! But it'll be interesting to see how I
think I did and how they tell me I did....kinda frightening

General Thoughts: This exam has helped me realize that I really want to work on my Eng=> Chinese
translation skills (yes, written first, then interpreting). I think that in terms of general
communication I don't run into any problems, but once I want to express something very
complicated, especially to interpret accurately what someone just said, completed with a long
sentence and a ton of modifiers, things get a little messy. (of course depending on the type of
interpreting simultaneous or consecutive and how you shorten sentences and the order that you
speak can vary....but i'm just generally sayingI had to go back to my grammar book and look up the
order of adjective modifers 名词修饰语的排列秩序in Chinese because I kept screwing those
up when I listened to my recordings. Oh, by the way listening to your recordings is a very
tramatizing, but helpful tool in general. I think that my Chinese=> English was ok and besides my
numbers I made only 1 silly mistake I think ( the passage said 2 countries
were名副其实的近邻 and instead of playing it safe I somehow convinced myself in that
fraction of a second that they said 金邻 (yes I know different tones! hindsight is 20/20!!),
which isn't a word I guess but I thought (once again in that whole fraction of a second) that
those Chinese expressions are so abundant they must be saying something about being such super
good neighbors being good as gold and somehow I ended up saying something to that extent and I
dunno, I'm hoping they already paid attention to the begining and completely forget about my very
last sentence) . Also my English to Chinese..hmm...how do I say it... I tried my best, it's not
pretty, but I think it gets the idea across somewhat well enough. The C=>E, E=>C are equal in
scoring but quantity wise there is more E=>C which is a bit nerve wracking


Karma & Don't Assume the proctors know what they are doing, or even that you know how to properly
read the exam instructions listed in the website: Ok, so as the likely only native English
speaking person taking this exam you would think that I should get a perfect score on listening
comprehension, right? Well, I 'SHOULD", but let's just say (and I've already been torturing myself
over this for the last 2 days) that I didn't quite realize that we had to use pen on the written
portion of the listening comprehension score and now my test in that section may be disqualified
since I used pencil all the way through. ( The most tragic, yes tragic part of this is that this
was TRULY a "cough cough cough" ran exam in the level of disorder at the exam, the procters were
watching me write in pencil lalalala and then pointed out to me and said, write your name in PEN
on the scantron and the booklet. I then asked pencil for everything else, right? and got a
yes/grunt in response. Later on I realized (as I thought to myself why is everyones summary pen,
that's not right!!!) that the exam regulations (NOT PRINTED ON THE EXAM, but on the 3rd sheet of
our 准考证, which I of course didn't take outta my bag since we had to check those) stated to
use PEN in the 主观section of the exam....but since this was the first time I took it , i guess
I was under the assumption the actual EXAM would say use pen RIGHT HERE...but now I probaly failed
the English listening comprehension, and even if they grade it they will have think I cheated
since I can guarantee you that I have a 100 percent in that section, but it's all in pencil so
they are probably burning my exam as we speak wondering which reader I must paid off to fill in my
answers......sigh...


So that's all I can think of now. Besides from my uncertain score b/c of pencil-gate, I did find
this a very positive and motivating experience. I took classes on the weekends for this exam for
the last 2 months, and in the end our 班长and two students were picked for getting a special
'improvement' award. I was one of the students, which I don't think I just got b/c of the laowai
factor, but towards the end of the training I was suddenly able to hear things and organize them
in my mind and then just spit it out while many students where still trying to hide behind their
desks praying not to get called on. Aside from that I've had fun (yes, fun) sitting down and
taking notes during the nightly news and reading back and forth with my Japanese classmate who
will take the Japanese version of the exam in April.

Regardless of my score, I'm going to go for the level 2 exam next, and try to improve my
Eng=>Chinese 笔译 to build a sturdier foundation and this exam has definitely given me that
language goal that I needed to keep pushing myself.

----
I also reserve the right to fix all the typos later...yawn...


[edit] even thought the passing rate is less than 10% i am mildly optimistic b/c this was a
generally good experience, but also because many people who actually take the exam have not
prepared at ALL. I mean, even our teachers said that they get recordings of pure silence and even
the guy sitting next to me seemed to give up after a while. Therefore I think that if you
eliminate those people, the passing rate should be much higher Plus, what they say is true, just
speaking a foreign language isn't really enough to be good at translating/interpreting~ memory is
quite improtant, plus a bunch of other things...










roddy -

Excellent stuff, thanks for doing the write up. Hope they don't take offense at your use of pencil.










heifeng -

yeah, me too. sigh.










Josh2007 -

Can you take a translation test that is just one-way? Eg Chinese into English but not t'other way
round? I understand that usually translators are not expected to translate into a language that is
not their mother tongue, right?










heifeng -

[edit] apparently the bnu putonghua ceshi in february is just for current degree students so ya'll
have to go to
shoudushifan daxue where satan's lil' helper works to take the exam if you are in bj ...since they
have it there almost every month










roddy -

Here's another one for you which I at least haven't heard of - the 汉字应用水平测试. As
far as I can tell this is a new one, and has only been trialled in 2007, and is due to be rolled
out nationwide 2008-2009.

Covers 5,500 Chinese characters (for comparison the HSK totals 2,800 I think, so you're looking at
about double that), divided into three levels of 4,000; 500 and 1,000. Odd distribution.

There doesn't seem to be much information out there about this one, but there is a 大纲
published.

Not sure that this one is actually of much use - it seems to be being touted for entry to public
servant positions, journalism and so on, but there are already exams for that - 公务员考试,
and one for reporters - not sure how widely used these are though. But could be useful for anyone
who wants to learn loads of characters. I had a look round for an online 子表, but no joy. There
are some sample questions though.

Anyway, will look forward to your post-exam report, heifeng. Good luck!










Jenny311 -

It's interesting to read your experi ence. I was on the same boat with you, but opposite
directions.-- I just finish my MA degree learning on Translation & Interpreting, going throught
all those painful note-taking and memerizing stuff. But I'm a native Chinese. Maybe we can be
helpful to each other.

Looking forward to your exam result, too.










heifeng -

Congrats on finishing your degree! What exams have you had to take to become certified in the UK?
I am definitely interested, and I am sure there are others that are quite interested, in your
experience pursuing your M.A. degree if you would like to share

Hmm, I'm not really looking forward to my results since they may potentially put me in a bad mood
for a while. Even so I will ~probably~ post them online....they are out in just over a week or
so....

By the way happy new year and Chinese exam taking in the upcoming new year to all the forum
members hehe










roddy -

Not sure if this would be better off as a separate topic or not, but will have one of our admin
folk split it off if it becomes necessary. I'm asking here as it's relevant to the
普通话测试,but it's maybe not only relevant to that.

I've been presented with a copy of the 普通话测试指要, which is apparently out of date but
features the 现代汉语常用字 (2,500) and 次常用字 (1,000). I wanted to have these as I
like lists, even if they're not of much practical value. Lists allow me to calculate, divide and
plan, without the need for any actual study.

Anyway, the book has these lists, in pinyin order. However, I can't find online any versions of
this list which are even ordered by pinyin, much less contain pinyin or any other value added
information. All that's available is a stroke-ordered version, ie.

Does anyone know of anything in electronic format for these lists? I have looked, but only as far
as page two of Google.












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