EOYs - Day 1

English Oral Exam was a breeze! I found the read-aloud passage about snakes rather dry and insipid (it was something about two boys called Vincent and Antony and their zeal for snakes), but really, the last line of the passage made me snicker, because it served as the major 'punchline' to this little story. Very cute.

The conversation bit caught me a little off-guard, because it was about snakes, and eventually that progressed into a discussion about animals, which is a subject I hadn't been expecting (until I read the passage, with a dismal sigh). What I had been looking forward to was a topic about social problems, such as the nature of teenage delinquency or the danger that the mass media poses to teenagers, but since my examner was such a wonderful conversationalist (something that I hadn't thought him of), we managed to cover the conversation into something much deeper and meaningful. I particularly enjoyed the bit about naturalists such as Steve Irwin who over-sensationalize animals in danger of extinction, and how the phrase 'life is all about gaining knowledge' may take a very self-centred approach. However, I found the points I brought up very random and unexpected but I think it all fitted together nicely.

Mother Tongue Oral Exam was hellish. I waited for quite a long time to reach my turn, and was rudely surprised to see a passage about fighting fish that was riddled with words that appeared very foreign to me (but after that I faked my way through the passage, albeit with stutterings and oh no– 'ums'). But that aside, I think the topic given was quite interesting. Something on domestic helpers in Singapore, and whether it was rational for families to have domestic helpers. My points were good, my pronounciation was very obviously sub-par. And once again, I was asked the all too familiar question of whether I'm Chinese and whether I speak Mandarin at home. The thing about examiners who take me for Chinese is, they seem more sympathetic and 'interactive' then most EL oral examiners and I think it's very good that pointers and comments were given after the end of the examination, instead of in EL exams when one is 'left in the lurch', never knowing what the teacher might be thinking.

I'll be sitting for my Mother Tongue Papers 1 and 2 tomorrow. I'm definitely going to do the formal letter question.