IELTS test today !

It's there : My first 'real' exam since my motorbike license ! And to make things worse, we have to go all the way to Amsterdam to sit the test. That's 2 hours drive from here ! The test is scheduled to begin at 09:15, and examinees are expected to arrive at 08:45 to sign for their presence. So Kim and me agreed we should leave at 06:30, which means we would have to stand up at 06:00. After our last night's problems with the public waste deposit place on top of our physical exercise that day, we were absolutely knackered. At 22:00 we decided to go to bed early so we would have a chance to pass the exam the next day.

At 06:30 we set course for Amsterdam. Although we have a GPS device, 'we' ( the royal 'we' , and in this case really meaning 'Kim' ) decided not to use the GPS device but use a smallish map of Amsterdam which quite accurately pointed out the location of the IELTS exam centre. Unfortunately, it didn't show on the map where we were, and once in Amsterdam we were quickly lost. It ended with the usual "give me that map" ( at which moment Kim promptly produced a second map ) which ofcourse I couldn't read because I was driving. So 'we' ( the Royal 'we' , in this case that would be myself ) decided to park the car in the first parking garage we saw, which was only about 20 minutes walking distance from the IELTS place : Lucky us ! We arrived at 08:45 exactly, so all things considered we did pretty well.

The test starts with a listening test. It was easy enough and we both expect to have good results. After this test we did the reading test which was actually quite challenging on the Academic level we did the test at. The test doesn't focus simply on the meaning of the individual words, rather it focuses on your ability to understand complex grammatics and relations and reasoning. Although you get a whole hour to finish the reading test, we both finished with only minutes to spare, if that much. After the reading test follows the writing test, which again focuses on your ability to understand and interpret a thesis or graph, and from that interpretation write a summary or a thesis yourself. This is the academic level we did, because we thought we might need it to study someday : Apparently the 'normal' level is a lot easier. The last and final test was the speaking test, which came down to speaking with an english linguist for about 15 minutes. I had the bad luck to get a 'picky' woman, who would ask the the most difficult questions, like "What do you do when friends come over to your house ?". If I were to be completely honest, we don't get that many friends over to our house, and the last people who have been 'visiting' us were viewers who were potentially interested in buying our house !

All in all, it was a full days worth of exams, we were done around 14:00 , after which we took the liberty to visit the red light district in Amsterdam. It was a bit disappointing : You get the sex shops where you can see the newest SM fashions ofcourse, which is entertaining to say the least. ( things like "The Swing" or "Tarzan" there have a whole different meaning than what you remember from your childhood ! ).

Conclusion : We both think we passed the Academic level IELTS exam.
But the results which will be snailmailed in 10 days will give us a definitive result. I wonder who wins the bet !