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Studying for TestDaf | ||
Tags: Placement Test | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| katarinaantalya Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3807 days ago 7 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2 Studies: French, Bulgarian, Estonian | Message 1 of 2 09 July 2015 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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I'm planning on taking the TestDaf in February next year, so as to be able to study in
Germany next fall. I wanted to know- does anyone who's taken it or similar tests have any tips or anything I should know? My grammar is very solid, probably about a C1 or C2 level, but I'm less comfortable with vocabulary and speaking (maybe B2) and just can't figure out how much I need to know, or how much I can possibly learn in the next 7 months. Any advice for a newbie at language exams? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5551 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 2 of 2 11 July 2015 at 5:03am | IP Logged |
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I'm in a somewhat similar situation to you. I am planning on studying in Germany next fall but through
a bilateral exchange program that my university has with Baden-Württemberg (I can chose to go to any of the universities there but I'll be going to Universität Heidelberg), that said I'm hoping to that the majority of the classes I take are with native German speakers. What also makes my situation different is that I'll be taking German at my school this upcoming school year (after a year and a half of not being in school which is a long unrelated story). I'm also going to be applying to German grad schools while I'm there and will take the DSH or TestDaf while I'm studying abroad (I'm doing my senior year of college abroad which makes taking the DSH convenient). With all that said, I'm at generally at around B1-B2 level and my listening is significantly higher (I watch shows on ZDF on a regular basis). My major issue over the years has been with reading and remember the genders of nouns. So what have I been doing to improve my German? Since around May I've been working through Cornelsen's Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz nach Themen. I have been putting all of the words into a spreadsheet and then putting those into a "course" on Memrise. I'm about a quarter of the way done with entering everything and about an eighth of the way through the book in terms of learning). I try to go through one new lesson on Memrise a day (most of them are around 20 words) but sometimes life gets in the way. Even when I can't learn a new chapter I make sure to do my reviews every day. That alone, which hasn't been stressful for me at all (which is the reason I have kept it up), has improved my reading by leaps and bounds and surprisingly quickly! I didn't expect my reading comprehension to improve as quickly as it has but even though I wouldn't put my reading at C1 (or even above a low B2) I have had no problem reading through (and understanding) the degree handbooks for all of the MA programs in translation in Germany and Austria (there are only a handful of programs) which were written for an audience primarily made up of native German speakers. My current plan from now through the end of September (when school starts) is to keep doing the vocab stuff (I also have the workbook which I would highly recommend as an addition), go through one of my grammar books, and to do a lot of reading. Right now I'm reading through Heuber's Lesetraining book (which was published years ago and is targeted at high school students, it probably goes from A2-B1 level wise) while I wait for the book Lesetraining B2 to arrive. I'm also going to keep watching shows on ZDF (their documentary show 37 Grad is amazing). The class that I'm taking in the fall is a B2 class so I don't need to do as much as I'm doing but getting a head on vocabulary is going to make the school year significantly less stressful for me. I'm also in a convenient position (compared to the one you're in) of not having to take the DSH or TestDaF to study in Germany for the 2016/2017 school year (I'll have to take some sort of language test when I get there but that's more of a placement test than anything), though I will have taken a C1 course the summer prior. I'm not doing this right now but if I were you I would buy something like Mit Erfolg zu TestDaF any of the other TestDaF preparation textbooks. Most if not all of them have example tests in them and in addition have exercises that will get you used to the test format. Edited by aokoye on 11 July 2015 at 9:06am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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