Exams
Wah, it’s really been three months since I last updated this thread, haha. Time genuinely has escaped me, and I’ve been so focused on getting through the final term of this academic year to really sit and update my experience at SOAS. Yesterday was my last exam for the year, and I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to get some respite from the workload finally. We finished the academic year with a 3-hour writing exam, and let me tell you, no amount of preparation could have prepared me for the test we had to sit ㅠ.ㅠ The writing exam consists of 3 parts and is very reading-dense, so it’s definitely important to practice your reading well before the exam. The first part had 4 questions, the second had 3 questions, and the last part had 2 writing compositions that required a minimum of 150 words. It’s safe to say that everything I’d learned throughout the year magically left my brain the second I flipped that exam paper open, haha. But I’m optimistic that I’ve done well enough, and I’m proud of myself because I know that I gave it my all. It really didn’t hit me until I’d finished that paper how much I’ve improved in the last year. When I first started this course, I could barely get through a self-introduction in Korean, and now, I can hold decent conversations and talk about a plethora of topics. So while this course is difficult and requires a lot of willpower, it’s definitely super rewarding, and I absolutely don’t regret it.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand...
This year consisted of the following exams:
2 listening exams
2 speaking exams
1 writing exam
We took the second speaking exam on the 4th of May, less than two weeks before the very final exam, and to say that the structure confused me is an understatement. I have experience in studying languages in an academic setting and was expecting the speaking exam to follow a similar structure but was (rather unpleasantly) surprised to find out that the final Korean speaking exam would be a group exam rather than a solo one. The groups were chosen by the professors and made known to us only a few days before the exam, giving us only a short while to meet up with other members of our group to practice how we’d work together. To be honest, I was actually relatively happy with my group, and we managed to meet up twice before the exam to work together and come up with a structure that would work for us during the exam, no matter what theme of discussion was thrown at us. The speaking exam consisted of 2 tasks: one where you would choose a photo and spend 3-minutes talking about it with 2-minutes of prep time and the second where you and your group members would come together to choose one of the 4 topic themes and speak on that subject for 7-minutes. I definitely made myself nervous leading up to that exam, but I ended up settling down once we got in there and got started – plus, we had 이학경 선생님 as our examiner so that definitely made it much better.
Throughout the year, there was also a consistent stream of quizzes and speaking/writing assignments - of which all count as 20% of your overall grade under ‘continuous assignments’. Besides 2 quizzes that I forgot to do, I managed to stay pretty consistent in handing in all work on time and of rather good quality. But truth be told, it was really difficult to keep up with the Korean element of this degree when the East Asian Studies modules had back-to-back coursework that was rather time-consuming and long. And it was super important to also focus on these because the grade you earn on these modules is considered when your GPA is calculated for your Year Abroad application. So if you’re planning on taking this course, I’d definitely recommend staying on top of studying and working on your time-management skills if you want to avoid massive amounts of stress during the year.
If you have any questions, please DM me or leave a comment. Have a good day (: