<p>Hi, I know the basics of German and I can learn it pretty fast (I'm English/Spanish bilingual). I already scored in the 700s on the Spanish Subject Test, but I'd like to know if you think it'd be worth spending an hour a day throughout September and October learning German hardcore to take the Nov 3 test (my mom and grandma are native and can help). I'm going to spend September prepping more for SAT (and look at ACT). The thing is that I'm more interested in Asia (China) for the future and am making plans for hardcore Mandarin next year to take the AP, but I'd do the German test just to strengthen my college application. I don't know if I should do it or just completely forget German and focus on SAT and start Mandarin (I don't even know if I'd reach even intermediate level with that but given how much I've recently become interested in the language, I think I could do it). Any advice?</p>
<p>I took it this year in June (so reading only). I walked out of the room with a horrible feeling, but ended up with a 770, which is the 79% percentile. A little bit about me…</p>
<p>I took it at the end of my junior year, and had completed German 4 (block scheduling at my school; I took German for 4 semesters straight). I took German 3 and 4 as Independent Study, and didn’t learn much, but I did A LOT of reading on my own time (like all seven Harry Potter books, and a few novels here and there). I also enjoy translating German songs in my spare time (which unfortunately isn’t much). I did take the National German Exam Level 3 test in December of 2011 (so after completing German 3) and get a perfect score, but I thought that the test was a joke. </p>
<p>I walked into the test VERY confident, because I had done so well on the practice test from the official book, and I thought that the National German Exam level 4 practice test I had taken was easy. I became very frustrated during the test, because it doesn’t matter how good your grammar is, if you don’t know the definition of a word, you’re screwed. </p>
<p>I also took the German with Listening practice test, and did much worse on that. I truly believe that it’s a memory test. The questions aren’t printed in the book, so you have NO idea what to listen for; you just try to hastily scribble notes (btw, this is completely unlike the NGE, where questions are printed in the book, and they pause for 15 seconds in between each question). </p>
<p>I wish that they offered German w/o Listening more than once a year! Because I think that you would do MUCH better on that. I’m honestly not sure whether you could do it–study for the next 2 months and do well enough. What score are you aiming for? Is your German listening comprehension good, but you lack vocabulary? </p>
<p>The grammar section itself was basic enough, it was the reading comprehension that made me think. I don’t know anyone else who took the test (I think less than 500 people take it, but that number seems waaaay too low) either. </p>
<p>Have you ever taken German during school?</p>
<p>This was long and unorganized, but I hope it helped you a little.</p>