“Please close all tabs in your browser. If you want to add an accent mark, hold down the vowel and then select the option that pops up. The program itself has disabled any functions using the control key, such as pasting, copying, printing, and so forth.”
This is a synopsis of some of the boring but necessary instructions for the National Spanish Exam. As Link academics wind down, Spanish marches on. This month, each student took both parts of the exam—an exam that 85,000 students around the country choose to take as they square off to see how they compare across the spread of curricula around the nation. In preparation for the exam, we repeated these instructions over two days, going through sections on vocabulary and grammar as well as reading and listening.
No one can be fully prepared. The best a student can do is head into the exam having completed some practice exercises and having learned whatever they learned throughout the year. Sometimes the test asks about names for barnyard animals, sometimes parts of the body, or fruit, or after school activities, or indoor botany, or staining a table. Rarely do they include sea life of Baja or words associated with cleaning up a fishing camp or surfing or rock climbing—these we have covered. It’s a roll of the dice. This year, students did very well trying hard and focusing on the task at hand. Some students missed one or two in a section, others missed several. However, the test is not a measure of basic knowledge, but how each student compares to their peers across the nation and how much each student has progressed.
Shortly, a percentile ranking will be given to each student and some will score in the upper 50th, earning an honorable mention or a bronze, silver, or gold medal. No matter how any individual ranks, they can all be very proud to have taken the exam and done so well. Truly, these students know significantly more than most students at their respective levels, and each does very well working on formal conversation, and tossing in some appropriate slang.
As they say in Baja (painted on one of our pangas) ¡Vámonos ya!