I got a 4 on the exam, but I’ve taken Spanish for 5 years at a high school level and I’m dual-enrolled in a college class, so hopefully I can help you out a little bit. (i know this test was last week but lol i forgot to post this so whatever. they’ll still be giving it next year)
1. You NEED to expose yourself to Spanish outside of class
This was legitimately the difference between a 4 and 5 in my case. This test is hard, there’s no other way to put it and it requires you to be able to use the language in all it’s forms: listening and speaking as well as reading or writing.
Some suggestions of how you can do that:
Listen to Spanish music while you study
here’s all the Latino spotify playlists to start
There’s a bunch of Spanish language movies and TV shows on Netflix. But if that’s not your jam, most Netflix-produced tv shows have the option to change the language to Spanish. See how much you can pick up (without subtitles) on your rewatch of Stranger Things or A Series of Unfortunate Events.
if you’re not at that level yet, turn on the English subtitles and see if you can tell how accurate they are.
change your phone’s language to Spanish. You’ll be forced to interact with it every day.
Talk to your friends who are also taking that class in Spanish once or twice a week and text them in Spanish as well. It’ll help you both practice.
Hopefully, your class is taught entirely in Spanish. If not, still try to take notes in the language and answer questions in it as well.
If you know someone in your family or have a friend who is a native speaker, use that resource. Call and talk to them or start emailing them or writing letters.
If all else fails, there a bunch of websites and apps that can connect you to native speakers. Look at the langblr community on tumblr or apps like Hellotalk, which connect you with native speakers.
2. Don’t try to translate what you’re listening to while you listen to it
This might seem like the exact opposite of what you need to do but trust me. The people in the listening sections of the tests are native speakers and your brain simply isn’t going to be able to go from Spanish to English fast enough to keep up.
Instead, don’t try to translate and write down notes of what you’re hearing in Spanish to go back to later. Otherwise, you’ll just get frustrated or behind and shut down for the rest of the selection. (I speak from experience.)
3. Know your complex tenses!
If you continue to study Spanish, you’re going to need to know them anyway, so you might as well know them now.
Demonstrating you know the difference between preterite and the imperfect or what triggers the subjunctive shows you have a grasp of the language that goes above and beyond basic present tense conjugations.
What I suggest you should definitely know:
preterite and imperfect
subjuntive (at least the present tense)
commands
future
conditional
participles
progressive (-ing words)
4. Know the right vocab.
This shouldn’t be the only vocab you should know, but there are some themes that tend to come up on the test pretty often.
The ones my teacher highlighted included:
technology
the environment
politics (developing countries)
the arts (usually there’s some reading/listening passages about authors, painters, etc.)
your future/travel (college scholarships, studying abroad and volunteering, etc.)
Also know your idiomatic and transition phrases. If you can make your essays flow more smoothly, you’ll score higher and sound more like a native speaker.
5. Tips, tricks, and other things you need to remember
One of the writing exercises is usually an email or a letter. The recipient will vary so know how to format both formal and informal letters: greetings, farewells, when to use tú or Usted, etc.
Like I said above, idiomatic and transition phrases, as well as complex tenses are your friends.
Circumlocution: a fancy word that basically means if you don’t know the word you want to say, use different ones to make the same point or talk around it. It might sound more awkward but it won’t completely paralyze you while writing your essay.
One of the speaking exercises will require you to compare your community with one in a Spanish speaking country. If you don’t have one you’re super familiar with already, pick one and study up a bit on the culture.
Take notes! Especially during the listening sections, jot some things down (in Spanish), especially for the longer ones or those they only play once.
6. Practice, Practice, PRACTICE
The exercises are timed. You want to get used to how long writing for 15 minutes are. You want to know how long speaking for 20 seconds feels (it’s a hell of a lot longer than you think it is sometimes).
Same goes for word counts. Figure out about how many words you write on a line so that way you don’t have to be counting word by word. Also, figure out how to hit that word count by using idiomatic expressions and transition phrases.
Getting familiar with how the exercises are set up and the format of the test is the most helpful thing you can do before you start. College Board posts past tests you can use to do this. They go from what is easiest for most people (reading) to hardest (speaking) so that definitely helps. (I found the listening section hardest though.)
7. You don’t have to be perfect.
Again, the test leaves room for you to make some mistakes. They know that, if you’ve been studying for three or four or five years and are not a native speaker, that you might forget an accent or leave out an “a” or forget to change “o” to “u” where you need to. As long as you’re making yourself understood, you’re on the right track.
Good luck! If you have any questions (or suggestions of your own), please send me an ask!
