[mintaltoids]

你们考得怎么样？I thought the paper was actually really easy! And the P2 prompts were divine, I chose the first one, and probably wrote over the limit, if any. Although I do have to admit, the 3rd 文章 was especially hard. What did you guys think of it?

[fliegendehollander]

I take HL but one of my friends did SL and thought the third passage was about adopting dogs. LOL

[mintaltoids]

HAHA no worries. I thought it was about a convention or something the first 10 minutes reading the text. Only after looking at the questions did I find out that it was about a marathon runner. Or was it? I'm still not too sure.

[fliegendehollander]

It is. Rather dick of them to use a transliterated word innit? 馬拉松

Mine was rather tricky. Not so much a problem of understanding (I really shouldn't be taking B HL :P) but more of a "hmmmmm is this the answer or this...." situation.

I heard your last question was an odd format, most people in my school didn't get it.

[mintaltoids]

Oh so the "馬拉松" was a direct translation from the English "marathon". Makes perfect sense now. But yeah who would've guessed. I guess the repetition of 跑 would be a clear indicator but nah brain decided otherwise for a good 10 minutes of the exam.

Where are you from originally? I'm getting a bit worried because I've heard many 华人 take Mandarin B as an easy A class, which will raise the bell curve and put those who don't have any Chinese background (like me) at a disadvantage.

And yeah the last part was weird. It was basically an article introducing a travelling agent with a "special low price offer" and we had to write an article introducing its main features. I'm not sure if I included the right things though- put in as much from the article as possible. It's weird because there was no for or against, which was frustrating because that was what we were used to. Stupid IB.

[Ola_222]

For those who did the SL paper, out of curiosity are any of you actually Chinese?

[fliegendehollander]

I'm a Chinese from Singapore taking B HL. School's fault, not offering A2. That said HL is still rather a challenge.

[Ola_222]

Just asking because I'm sort of trying not to freak out as I feel like I'm the only person who isn't Chinese that did SL (I'm actually Nigerian, but born and raised in London )

BTW did anyone find paper 1 (SL) a little bit challenging?...I know I did
Paper 2 was actually ok, wrote over 300 characters and used at least 3 idioms (as advised by my teacher) so I should get a good mark for culture interaction...or something like that.

[mintaltoids]

(Original post by Ola_222)
Just asking because I'm sort of trying not to freak out as I feel like I'm the only person who isn't Chinese that did SL (I'm actually Nigerian, but born and raised in London )

BTW did anyone find paper 1 (SL) a little bit challenging?...I know I did
Paper 2 was actually ok, wrote over 300 characters and used at least 3 idioms (as advised by my teacher) so I should get a good mark for culture interaction...or something like that.

I found the third text on P1 challenging, and forming my response for the fourth text a tad confusing. P2 I thought was easy and ended up writing a full fledged essay with three body paragraphs! Haha Half an hour before the conclusion of the exam I sat there counting the characters and realized I wrote some 500 characters or so. Teacher says that's perfectly alright seeing as they only specified the minimum amount and not the maximum! What type of idioms did you use? I sort of plugged in some, but barely though!

[Paperhouse]

does anyone know what happens if your essay is off topic?

[jacksonriddle]

oh dear ok.
yeah lots of my friends said paper 1 was hard. to be honest i haven't done many past papers so i guess it was harder than the mock...
the first passage was really easy for everyone in my school because it was about hong kong and we all live here.
the third passage wasn't easy though. the questions picked on such odd details and were really specific.
i think paper 2 was ok, i don't think really anyone went for the argumentative one, and the 4th one was just odd. most people either did number 3, or 1. I did 1, wrote a really cringe essay and went up to about 500 or 600 words, and was actually probably the last person to stop writing. i have no idea why but everyone finished within 40 minutes.

[mintaltoids]

(Original post by jacksonriddle)
oh dear ok.
yeah lots of my friends said paper 1 was hard. to be honest i haven't done many past papers so i guess it was harder than the mock...
the first passage was really easy for everyone in my school because it was about hong kong and we all live here.
the third passage wasn't easy though. the questions picked on such odd details and were really specific.
i think paper 2 was ok, i don't think really anyone went for the argumentative one, and the 4th one was just odd. most people either did number 3, or 1. I did 1, wrote a really cringe essay and went up to about 500 or 600 words, and was actually probably the last person to stop writing. i have no idea why but everyone finished within 40 minutes.

To be honest I finished my introduction and main paragraphs within the first 40 minutes as well, but seeing as to how there was so much time left I decided to stay in the exam room and double check EVERYTHING to make sure I didn't make any obvious mistakes (I probably left some though). I remember past papers being harder than the one this year, especially November 2011 or something, can't remember. Anyway, our teacher made us do ALL the mocks from previous years so going into the Mandarin exam wasn't so scary. How long have you taken Mandarin for? And where are you from originally?

[jacksonriddle]

(Original post by mintaltoids)
To be honest I finished my introduction and main paragraphs within the first 40 minutes as well, but seeing as to how there was so much time left I decided to stay in the exam room and double check EVERYTHING to make sure I didn't make any obvious mistakes (I probably left some though). I remember past papers being harder than the one this year, especially November 2011 or something, can't remember. Anyway, our teacher made us do ALL the mocks from previous years so going into the Mandarin exam wasn't so scary. How long have you taken Mandarin for? And where are you from originally?

yeah my teacher just leaves it all to us. one half of my class is completely committed and hard working, the other half never does anything.
well i'm actually from hong kong (and go to an international school) but i cannot speak mandarin to save my life. i can speak cantonese but at first i did B HL and dropped down because i would've failed all the orals - i found the standard level orals quite challenging and did really badly in the mocks too. i did have time to do a read through at the end of paper 2, and there was a word that i was wracking my brains for because i forgot how to write it, but got it down in the last minute (it was 耐性） lucky i wasn't having one of those days where i can't remember ANY complicated words.

[Ola_222]

I used words like 见多识广, 井底之蛙 (as they are my favourite idioms)...yeah I can't remember the rest lol. I don't know what to say about P1, I understood the text but when it came to answering the questions I had no clue what they were asking for

[mintaltoids]

(Original post by Ola_222)
I used words like 见多识广, 井底之蛙 (as they are my favourite idioms)...yeah I can't remember the rest lol. I don't know what to say about P1, I understood the text but when it came to answering the questions I had no clue what they were asking for

My gawd! Sounds like you'll get a 7 for that paper I didn't use any idioms of those sorts.

[Ola_222]

I hope so lol, sorry this is a late reply but I have finally found a thing they call "social life", being an IB student I'm ashamed to say I had not heard of such a thing before LOOL I hope you all are enjoying life after IB as well...until results day I'm pretty sure we'll all do well!