put me in my place

Our spring semester is about to begin. I'm sure that sounds strange to you students and teachers back home who are almost halfway done with your spring semester, just a couple weeks away from Spring Break. But for us the semester doesn't begin until March 2; I guess that's the tradeoff for having our fall semester stretch past New Year's Day.

This morning I had to go up to campus to take my semester placement test. Last semester I tested into (and completed) the Beginners-2 level of Chinese language classes at Nankai University. I could just go directly into Beginners-3 this semester if I wanted, but in our program we also have the option of taking a placement test to try get into a higher level class. I was hoping to skip right over Beginners-3 and get into Intermediate-1.

I had originally planned to spend a good chunk of my semester break studying and reviewing, in order to ensure that I could test into a higher level. Unfortunately, those plans were never really put into action. After spending the majority of the break traveling and recovering from traveling, my last minute plan was to cram for the last week of the break. Unfortunately I came down with the flu Ben has had, so I've spent the past few days doing little but lounge on the couch, nap and watch X-files.

With essentially no study/review under my belt, I felt pretty underprepared when I walked into the classroom this morning. Sitting in the test room, I convinced myself that, while I would give the test my best shot, I would be okay if I didn't test up a level.

Then I started taking the test, and was amazed to see how much I knew without having studied or reviewed. The answers just came to me, completely naturally, with little thought at all. Even when I came across words I didn't know, I felt like I could understand well enough from the context of the sentence to figure them out. I started to think that maybe--just maybe--I might be able to test two levels higher, into Intermediate-2 instead of Intermediate-1. I walked away from the test feeling pretty good, but a little anxious to find out if I had done as well as I felt I had done.

Well, my friend Lawrence called a little bit ago. He was standing in front of the test scoreboard outside our classroom building, and he wanted to know if I wanted him to look at my score while he was there. My heart skipped a beat, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to know or not, but I finally told him to tell me how I did.

He told me I didn't test into Intermediate 1 or 2. In fact, I not only skipped over Beginners-3, but also skipped Intermediate levels 1, 2, and 3, and tested directly into Advanced 1! I couldn't believe it! I tested four levels higher than I would have been at without testing!

I still haven't decided if I'm actually going to enter Advanced 1 on Monday. I'm not entirely convinced that my Chinese level is actually that advanced. I may just try it out for a couple of weeks, see if it's a good fit or not, and then go from there. Or I may chicken out and go into Intermediate-2. Either way, it's good to know that I really am learning, I'm really making progress in my language study--maybe even more than I know.