<p>So its been more than 48 hours. What did you guys all think about the free response sections?</p>
<p>The 55-minute essay was good; the prompt was pretty easy. I ended up writing 2 1/2 pages, and even incorporated “Por que tan serio?” into my thesis statement! </p>
<p>As for the 10-minute informal writing part, that one wasn’t too bad either. I’m just worried about the speaking part because I was halfway through a sentence and got cut off.</p>
<p>formal speaking D:</p>
<p>The 10 minute writing thing went okay, I think. The longer one was difficult, though. I felt like I was repeating myself a lot, and I got almost nothing out of the 3rd source (the audio one). I thought it said something about marmots not being able to produce eggs because of the higher water temperatures, so I squeezed that into the end of my essay. After I got home, though, I looked up “marmot” and it is apparently some kind of praire dog that doesn’t even live near the ocean, let alone lay eggs. I’m hoping I’ll get some credit because I got that some kind of animal couldn’t lay eggs, but messed up what kind of animal it was. (Was it supposed to be fish?)</p>
<p>For the short speaking, I am tentatively hopeful that I did okay, although my reponses and the other guy’s didn’t really match up. (For example, he asked me for suggestions on what he and his cousins should do while they are visiting, I answered that I didn’t know the city very well and that he should ask a different friend, and he responded something along the lines of, “What a great suggestion! We’ll do that.”)</p>
<p>The long speaking…I don’t know. I think 2 minutes would be too short to plan out a 2-minute speech in English, to be honest.</p>
<p>Lawl long speaking… man I failed that. I didn’t get to comparing similarities. Just differences. Ugh… I feel a foreboding two. The writing and everything else was bloody easy though.</p>
<p>If I used a pencil on the short essay portion because I forgot, will I get penalized? :/</p>
<p>How long was everyone’s informal writing? Mine was well written and whatnot, but I didn’t even get past the first page, how bad is that? I also understood literally nothing from the 3rd source, but supossedly it was about these red fish beginning to lay eggs earlier and earlier, because with higher temperatures they think it’s spring (when they normally lay eggs) while its actually still winter. This then has some implication which I don’t really remember. This seems to differ from what you said though, siemprecuriosa, so maybe I’m wrong.</p>
<p>Free reponse ROCKED. 4s on writing and informal speaking, at least a 3 on formal speaking. I think I got a negative score on reading for sure, and around 0 for listening.</p>
<p>I love the informal writing! Favorite part of the whole test. It’s like a 10-minute breath of fresh air…haha. Lord rafiki, don’t worry about the length; I didn’t get past the first page either. As long as it’s above the word minimum and you’ve got pretty stellar grammar and somewhat interesting syntax/content, you’re good to go. Even if all that stuff isn’t great, you’ll still (hopefully) get a decent score. As my Spanish teachers says, it’s more about quality than quantity.</p>
<p>The formal writing, however, was a tad bit more sketchy, I’d have to say. I swear I used the words "cambio clim</p>
<p>Oh goodness, I thought that the thing in the ocean was a red reef or whatever that really bad phenomenon was. Red tide? I think that’s what it’s called. And I talked about how that affected fish migration…
I was very proud of myself for remembering the phrase “efecto invernadero”</p>
<p>i took this my freshman year, i’m hispanic but i haven’t seen real spanish in like 8 years , and i got a 5, the test was easy</p>
<p>informal writing: i used up the whole thing that was provided
formal writing: used up the whole thing that was provided
informal speaking: rocked that… i think 
formal speaking: yeah yeah. i think i caught a rope that one.</p>
<p>lord rafiki–I have no idea. You’re probably right; like I said, I got pretty much nothing out of that 3rd source.</p>
<p>Agree with that third source for the formal comp. And the oral presentation was difficult, considering the first source was a page and a half long.</p>
<p>i didn’t think the reading and listening were THAT bad, but i didn’t like the formal speaking at all. by the way, does anyone know how they score it? i know it’s out of 180 but i don’t know exactly how they add up the scores</p>