Kavi­ta Laloo

We are in the midst of CXC/CAPE ex­ams and some of you may have to face the dread­ed Span­ish Oral Ex­am. To make your life eas­i­er and to make you feel more con­fi­dent, here are some sug­ges­tions for you. First of all, it is im­por­tant to set aside a pe­ri­od of time (an hour or two) every day to prac­tice your in­ter­pret­ing skills. It is im­pos­si­ble to cram for this type of ex­am, giv­en that these skills need to be as­sim­i­lat­ed grad­u­al­ly and per­fect­ed over time. It is al­so a good idea to read as much as you can in both Eng­lish and Span­ish in a wide va­ri­ety. There­fore, you must be pre­pared for any­thing and every­thing. On the day you take your ex­am, don't do any study­ing or prac­tic­ing; the time for that is past. Don't try to do last-minute cram­ming. Con­fi­dence and self-as­sur­ance are your most po­tent weapons in an oral ex­am. At this point, the best thing for you to do is clear your mind and get ready to give a mas­ter­ful per­for­mance.

There are the five main parts of an oral ex­am. Some of these you may or may not re­ceive dur­ing your ex­am:

Part 1

In­tro­duc­tion and In­ter­view

(3 min­utes)

When you en­ter the ex­am room, you will see the ex­am­in­er(s) sit­ting at a con­fer­ence ta­ble. The per­son(s) will in­tro­duce them­selves and ask you to take a seat op­po­site them and you may in­tro­duce your­self.

Part 2

In­struc­tions

(6 min­utes)

You will be giv­en in­struc­tions on tak­ing the ex­am. The eval­u­a­tion process will be ex­plained, and you will be in­formed when to an­swer.

Part 3

Sight Trans­la­tion

(10 min­utes)

In­struc­tions for this por­tion of the ex­am will be read to you, and then you will be giv­en a doc­u­ment for trans­la­tion from Eng­lish to Span­ish.

Part 4

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous

(7 min­utes)

Ex­plic­it in­struc­tions will be read to you by an ex­am­in­er. Then you will be giv­en a set of head­phones, and one of the ex­am­in­ers will start the tape for you to in­ter­pret. The tape will be­gin with some in­tro­duc­to­ry mat­ter to al­low you to ad­just the vol­ume. Then a tone will sound, and af­ter that you will be­gin in­ter­pret­ing from Eng­lish to Span­ish.

Part 5

Cross-Ex­am­i­na­tion

(Con­sec­u­tive and Si­mul­ta­ne­ous, 22 min­utes)

An ex­am­in­er will read you the in­struc­tions for this sec­tion, and then you will be­gin the con­sec­u­tive por­tion. It will be a mock tri­al.