National Spanish Exam

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I will be taking the National Spanish Exam this upcoming week and I’m not sure what I should do to prepare. I really want to get a gold on the exam (95 percentile or higher, which would be about 334 points or higher), but I’m not sure how obtainable this would be. Any tips?
I am in Spanish 2 honors, so I will be taking the Level 2 test. I have already taken the Listening/Reading practice test and the Vocabulary/Grammar practice, and according to the “Predict Your Percentile Charts” that put be right around the 92nd percentile, which would equate to a silver on the actual exam.
I have spent the last month or so looking over an official NSE list of level 2 vocab words on Quizlet on and off, and I’ve found that a lot of the vocab is over material we haven’t learned in class. My teacher says not to stress about it, since the school district sets the pace of the Spanish curriculum and the NSE isn’t going to count as a major test grade for the class; that we have to take the exam but it’s not that important, but I set my expectations rather high (maybe a bit too high) and the fact that I don’t know the vocab concerns me.
As for other things I’ve done to prepare, over the past week or so, I’ve reviewed preterite and imperfect conjugations (we haven’t learned future tense yet), which was really helpful, utilized the listening practices on the NSE site with mixed success, and cleared up discrepancies between words like “por”, “para”, “cuál”, and “qué”.
What also makes me nervous is that last year at my current school, only 6 people in the school in any level of Spanish got the gold distinction. One of these students was in Spanish 2 (honors), while the others were in Spanish 3 or 4.
A few questions about the NSE:

  1. Does the NSE vary greatly from year to year or should I expect this year’s exam to be similar to the practice I took? I’m assuming it’ll be similar, but just making sure…
  2. Is it really that important? Since it’s not for a grade, getting a gold is a personal goal of mine, but what exactly are the benefits to scoring high on this test?
  3. Is it feasible to go up 3 percentile from the practice to the actual with less than a week left to study?
  4. What should I do to prepare myself?
    I’m NOT looking for specific answers or direct references to the test if you’ve already taken it this year. I want to take it honestly without any accidental advantages, shall I say, but I want to be as prepared as possible. Thanks! :slight_smile:
2

Well, I haven’t taken the NSE but I took the NGE and I am taking the NLE. In studying I found that I didn’t know a ton of vocab and with other midterms I was short on time. But since the test is multiple choice you should be able to guess from context and with a basic backing have no trouble. I wouldn’t worry too much about getting a gold since you’ll just stress yourself out, but definitely continue to work your hardest. Yes I believe you can raise your percentile with just a week left (I’ve managed with only a few days). It will take a ton of nonstop studying but definitely go for it and try your best! And I don’t know how much they change the formatting, but though they switch it up I believe it’ll be fairly similar. So good luck!

3

Hello. I got gold :). 97 percentile.

Know all the imperfect conjugations. All of 'em. They don’t like to give you regular little preterite conjugations, oh no.

Know ir, ver, ser, estar, and the like very well.

Don’t worry about vocab. There’s literally nothing you can do to prep for that. If you come across any vocab you don’t know–which you will, trust me–just look at the context clues. The questions are actually pretty obvious.

If the questions themselves trip you up, look at the answer choices. They can help shed some light on the question.

The listening is kind of difficult. One silver lining, however, is that you can listen to 'em as many times as you can. I think I clicked on the replay button more than a dozen times, per. There’s no shame in it. You want the score, right? Of course, I don’t plan on relying on that in Spanish next year, but you should use that option while you have it.

Like RS said, though, don’t stress. I didn’t actually even study because I was certain that there was no way I could even get bronze. That relaxed mindset probably helped. You’re probably stronger in Spanish than you think.

And I think I got 80% raw score? I might be wrong about that. But that equated to a 97 percentile, so that should give you an idea of what score you should get to get a 95 percentile or higher. It’s not that high. I literally missed a fifth of the test, after all. :slight_smile:

Good luck. Update us when you get your scores back?