Mesaĝoj: 35
Lingvo: English
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 13:31:53
I thought of several things that might be tricky.
Translation where Esperanto does not have a parallel structure to the mother tongue - eg for English speakers translate 'we have nothing to lose' or 'despite having slept for 8 hours'.
Appropriate selection of vocab from a list of terms that have similar but not identical meaning or where confusion is likely - eg efekto efiko afekto efektiva.
Naming of things from everyday life (even experienced Esperantists are weak in the area) from drawings - eg gasmeter, paperclip, headlight, satellite dish.
However there is one type of test called a Cloze test which can be really challenging and which I have not seen examples of for Esperanto.
You take a text and delete every seventh word. The testee has to fill in the gaps with plausible entries without excessively distorting the meaning of the whole text. This simultanously tests grammar and vocab and has been established to be a effective predictor in longer and more traditional tests.
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 13:50:51
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 14:15:32
Don't have my comments now as the email was on a previous computer that crashed, and anyway they may have changed the test since.
Looking at the test that your link directs one to, it doesn't look particularly advanced to me. The multiple choice vocab section looks far too easy, for one thing.
And a couple of the sentences that you have to correct (find the errors) are just plain bizarre.
Edit: Oh I see that each time you click on the link you get a different selection of sentences to be corrected. That's a good point.
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 14:24:15
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 14:26:48
sudanglo:And a couple of the sentences that you have to correct (find the errors) are just plain bizarre..So, it isn't just me
.I always suspected that perhaps the methodology was to put users in a situation where they have to think outside their comfort zone, thus stick in a few odd examples. After all, it's always when you need to say something in another language which you don't even really say in your own language that you start to get worried.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 14:46:21
Anyway back on topic, the question is what would an advanced test look like. The C level here looks at best intermediate - look at the time allocated for the test, for a start.
Any reasonable comptetence in Esperanto would allow you to whistle through the test, obtaining a pass mark in half the time.
qwertz (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 14:58:26
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 15:44:33
sudanglo:Any reasonable comptetence in Esperanto would allow you to whistle through the test, obtaining a pass mark in half the time.Did you get through the 'C' level test the last time you tried it, if you don't mind the question?
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 15:54:51
But specification of criteria isn't the same thing as detailing what the exam would look like.
Seems to me obvious that any exam in a national language if translated into an equivalent exam (from a linguistic point of view) in Esperanto, would be necessarily much simpler.
Advanced exams in Esperanto are going to have to be different to advanced exams in national languages.
The grammar of Esperanto is much simpler, the word building sistem makes much vocablary transparent, there is hardly any irregularity and very little idiomatic restriction.
A lot of the stuff you would test in national languages to assess competence/knowledge, couldn't be tested in Esperanto.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-oktobro-10 16:07:48
But for heavens sake you surely can't disagree that the C level here hardly merits the description advanced.
Try it yourself. I expect 25/25 in 15 minutes - no lesser result.