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Aug 11, 2012, 4:58 AM
Post #15 of 24
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Some people have asked me about the details of the DELE exam so I hope this helps:
The DELE C2 is given in three groups, each group contains 2-6 tests. You have to pass each group with a minimum score of 70%. Keep in mind an educated native of Madrid would probably score around 90% so this is a tough, knock-out round. ¡Alcanza la cumbre! There are 2 so-called advanced levels, C2 being the highest and C1, the next level down in the Common Model, is required for all legal requirements like work or education. The difference between the two is that C1 has more expository passages and has tests grouped to improve your chances of passing. C2 has the tests grouped to minimize your chances of passing and you will find lengthier, literary passages with a lot of abstract concepts and more low frequency words.
For each group, one by one, I will give my impression.
Group 1. Uso de la lengua, comprensión de lectura y auditiva.
This is the only group that resembles a traditional language exam. It is graded objectively. I think there were 6 tests in this group. One that I remember was based on an article written by Mario Vargas Llosa about Paris in the 1950s. You can actually google it up: Cuando París era Una Fiesta. One really difficult exercise was a tertulia with 3 people; 1 man and 2 women. It was audio. There were about 15 statements that you had to say which person said each statement, or that nobody said them. The statements were incredibly subtly shaded with meaning. And the 2 women agreed on most points. Aargh! The other toughie was an interview (audio). Problem was the interview was via telephone and the audio was just awful. I passed APTO.
Group 2. Destrezas integradas: comprensión auditiva, comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción escritas
This was the group I most feared. It is subjectively graded. In this group there are 3 exercises. The first one I was given 2-3 articles (I think they were from El País) and an audio clip was played. I then had to write an essay explaining all sides of the argument, develop my own point of view, and make a conclusion and recommendation. Keep in mind this has to be written by hand using a ball point pen. And it is so strictly timed, you only have two and a half hours to write three articles, you are forced into the scenario where you are behaving like a native speaker. You aren’t allowed to have any aids like a dictionary. But in my opinion you would fail if you had to look up words, there is not sufficient time. The second exercise almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown. I was given a sheet of notes someone had taken at a meeting and I had to re-write them into a formal report for distribution. The problem was the notes looked fine to me without any re-write. To this day I have no idea what they wanted here. The final exercise was to write a report based on a graphic, I think it was a chart of poll results. Obviously, the intent here was there was no text to start from, the whole essay had to be created in my head from a picture. I passed APTO.
Group 3. Destrezas integradas: comprensión de lectura y expresión e interacción orales
These are the orals in front of the tribunal. It is graded on the fly in real time “subjectively”. You make a presentation to an examiner and then discuss/defend your ideas. A second examiner is off to the side and remains silent. They mark your score on the fly. I *guess* they are marking a bunch of fuzzy categories like expressiveness, reach, repetition, depth, error rate, concordance of tenses, etc. But since it is subjective there is no published standard to apply. This was the group where I had highest confidence. However, I think they mis-scored me, but still APTO so I got
CALIFICACIÓN FINAL DE: APTO Yaa-hoo!!!! ¡así que ya tenemos pretexto para festejar!
I hope this provides some useful information.
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