إن الامتحان كان هذا الاوال إمتحان منذ سنوات. نعم، من الصحيح أن أمتحنت في المواضع النفسة عبر الإنترنت،لكن الإمتحان الحقيقي لديه صنيعة مختلفة.

It was actually the first major Arabic test that I’ve taken in years. True, I took many practice tests from the web, but the real test was in an entirely different category.

أما الدرس فحاولت إلى اكثر مجتهداً مما كان ممكن. ابلغُت أن البرنامج في أواخر تشرين الأول و هذا يعني أن كان عندي ٣ شهور تقريباً لاستعداد للامتحان. و في هذا الوقت كنت في مستويى السنة الثانية لأنني  ناجح الامتحان الجامعي في الصيف. ما زال، عرفت أن مستويتي و لا المستويات اللازمة. فبالتوازي مع درساتي، درست ٣ ساعات يومياً قبل تخرجت من الجامعة في كانون الأول و في الأسابيع الستة بعد أن تخرجت و قبل الإمتحان، صارت الدراسة كأن لو كانت وظيفتي. أجمالياً درست حوالي ٥٠٠ ساعة.

As for studying, I really did try my best. I was informed about the Casa program at the end of October, which meant that I had three months to prepare. At this time I was somewhere around the level of 2^nd year Arabic, as I had passed the university test in the summer. I knew that I wasn’t close to the required level for the test, so concurrently with my academic classes, I tried to study three hours daily. After graduating in December, I made Arabic my full time job and in sum I studied about 500 hours.

أن يوم الإمتحان بدأنا بجزء الاستماع. كان سبع أشخاص في الغرفة و شعرنا بمستعدد لهذا القسم. أعرف ان ادركت خطأ في سؤال على الأقل، و لكن أعتقد ان خطأت ٢ او ٣ أسائل اجمالياً. قسم الاستماع الجديد لديه ٣ اجزاء. كان الاوال استماع إلى شرائح قصير – أقل من ٢٠ ثانية- و جواب سؤال معين عن الحلقة. بعد ذلك كان الجزء الثاني، مما استمعنا إلى قطعات متوصت و جوابنا أسائل معقدة إلى حد ما. و في هذين القسمين كننا مسموح  إلى استمع إلى القطعات مرتين. أخيراً كان الجزء المتفوق الذي يسألنا عن مواضع رأيسية من القطعات. كان هذا القسم أسهل من القسمين الأخرين لأن معظم الجواب تعتمد على معلومات عن الاحداث الحالي بدلاً من معفرة اللغية.

On the day of the test, we began with the listening section. There were 7 people in the room, and we all felt prepared for this section. I know that I made at least one mistake, and thought that I had made only 2 or 3 total. The new listening section had three subsections: the first was listening to short sections, around 20 seconds, and answering specific questions about the passage. The next section was listening to medium length passages, and answering questions slightly more complex. In both these sections we could listen to the passages twice. Finally was the advanced section, where we were asked about main ideas from news passages. This section was actually easier than the other two because most of the passages only required knowledge about current events instead of Arabic knowledge.

Everything in the reading section was taken from major Arabic dailies.

 و بعد جزء الاستماع، جاء القرأة. تتبع هذا الجزء قالب إمتحان ٢٠٠٥ و كانت كل الأسائل عن الفهم أم أسائل الترجمة. مثل الاستماع، وجدت مقالة سهلة،  و مقالة متوسطة، و مقالة معقدة. أما الموضوع السهل فتكلم عن الزواج الموظف في سوريا. كان الموضوع المتوسط رأياً عن الأزمة المالية العالمية. كان الموضوع الأخير نقد الأدب عن عاصر “العولمة” او “بعد حديثة” من حيث الأدب و النقد. لو كان هذا المقالة بالإنجليزية لهي تبقي صعبة للفهم. كان طالب من مجتمعنا الذي يقف قبل الوقت المحدود، لأن ” مخي ذوب”. لا اعرف إذا وجد شخص أخر منتهياً كل الأسائل.

Next was the reading section. This followed the mold of the 2005 test where every question was either about comprehension or translation. Like the listening, there were easy, medium, and hard articles. The easy subject was arranged marriages in Syria. The medium article was on the financial crisis, and the advanced article was an analysis of the age of globalization and post modernism in Arabic literary criticism. Even if this were written in English, it would have been hard to understand. I think among the 7, I was the only one to finish all questions. (though obviously not very well!) There was one student who gave up before the end stating that his brain had melted.

 إنّ جزء الكتابة، كان المواضيع منبؤة: سؤال سياسي عن أوباما و سياسية خرجيته و رسالة خيالية عن شغل في مأسسة غير حكومية. كتبت عن تعلم اللغة الانجليزية في العالم العربي. شعرت بتمام عن المقالتين، خصوصاً لانني كتبت شيءاً نفسياً اليوم السابق. ما زال، لا اعرف جدوى كتابتي فمن الممكن أن كان أفكاير أمية و متخلل بأخطأ. كنت كاتباً حتى نهية الجزء ٧٥ دقيقة بما أن بطء كتابتي.

For the writing section, both questions were predictable: a political question about Obama’s foreign policy and an imaginary letter about working for a NGO. I wrote something about teaching English in the Arab world, and I felt good about my essays, especially as I had written essentially the same thing the previous day.  I’m not sure about the quality of my writing, as my thoughts were ignorant and writing laced with errors.  I was writing until the very end, mainly because I write slowly.

 في النهية، أحسست بمفاجئ لأن كل الاستعداد يسعدني. كل الخمس مئة ساعة، مهما في الكتاب او الحلقات او “الكتابة و الأسلوب” او القرأة المقالات عن تذبذب الاقتصاد. و مع ذلك، لم استعداد إلى حد مناسب. من وجه نظر آني ثلاث شهر ليست وقت كامل لتطور من طالب في السانة الثانية إلى طالب متفوق، خصوصاً لأن درست بنفسي. و جانب إلى ذلك، لم أقدر على أعتبار نفسي برغم من أن فهمت معظم المواد على قطاع القرأة: شعرت بكان هذا الجزء الجزء الأقوي، و لكن عندما رأيت النتائج، فشلت فيه.

In the end, I was surprised by how all of my preparations had helped. All 500 hours, in reading and listening or even reading الكتابة و الأسلوب or articles about the economic meltdown. Despite this, I hadn’t prepared enough. On one hand, 3 months (while staying in America) may not have been enough time progress from a 2^nd year student to an advanced level- especially because I studied independently. Moreover, I don’t think I was able to effectively express my knowledge despite understanding most of the materials in the reading. I felt like this was my strength, but when I got my scores back, it turned out to be my weak point. 

و مع ذلك كله، يحدث الإمتحان سنوياً و هذا المرة عندي سنة كاملة لاستعداد.  

As it turns out, nobody who took the test at UW made it, including me. Despite all this, it’s an annual test- this time I have an entire year to improve. 

Many compare Arabic to learning how to swim. Most programs take the approach of the kiddie pool: first a toe, then waist, then neck, and finally you flail about until you can swim. A few others take a more radical approach- tossing you overboard and hoping you can swim to shore. This is linguistic immersion. The Foreign Service Institute, the State Department’s section for educating diplomats in language, refers to immersion as full time study- 30 or more hours a week. This may be intense, but it’s not really immersive. Immersion is leaving all other languages behind to improve skills in the target language. 

Middlebury pioneered the idea with their language pledge:

“In signing this Language Pledge, I agree to use _________ as my only language of communication while attending the Middlebury Language Schools. I understand that failure to comply with this Pledge may result in my expulsion from the School without credit or refund.”

CASA does the same thing for all their programs, with this language pledge:

I, _________________________, agree to use Arabic as my medium of communication during my time as a fellow in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) Program at the University of Damascus, Syria/ the American University in Cairo, Egypt.

By signing this statement of commitment I agree to uphold the following as part of the CASA Honor Code:

·         I commit to speaking Arabic exclusively while on the campus of The University of Damascus/ the American University of Cairo. I will also strive to use Arabic as much as possible when I am not on campus.

·         I understand that using a language other than Arabic with other CASA fellows while on campus is a violation of CASA’s Arabic Speaking Policy and should be avoided at all times.

·         I will make an effort to remind any fellow who breaks this policy at any time of their commitment to it in a friendly and non-confrontational manner.

·         I understand that observance of the Arabic-Only Speaking Policy can be suspended with permission from the CASA administrators or in case of emergency.

·         I understand that if I break this policy I will receive a written warning. If I receive more than two such warnings, CASA has the right to terminate my fellowship.

Does it work?

As a professor of mine remarked, immersion can be good for advanced study, but can be isolating and lonely for beginners, especially for Arabic. She attended Middlebury the first time as a relative beginner, and the language pledge was a poor experience. When she returned as an intermediate student, her experience was much better. When I studied Arabic in the Middle East in 2005, I did not follow any restriction on English usage. This was good for making friends with other students and getting around the city, but simply being in Syria was a limited pledge of sorts, and led to a bit of isolation.

This time, following my frustrations with studying Arabic in Spokane I’m going to Damascus, and forsaking English.  In what may be more or less than the language pledges that these languages use, will be personally trying to avoid English for the next few months. This means that everything that I write in English will actually be a translation of what I wrote in Arabic. It won’t be elegant, but I hope it will be effective.

What are your experiences with immersion? Did it work? Did you cheat? 

In my review of Arabic Writing for Style, I stated that the book was not worth reading except for two pages. I have transcribed these two pages below, so that you don’t have to waste your time or money.

I worked for the Princeton Review for years and graded hundreds of high school essays for the SAT. This one would have earned a 3 out of 6- just below the average score. In other words, the essay is basic but at a high school level.

The Essay

دعوة لتركيب مواسير صرف في الشوارع

لاشك أنه يجب عمل مصارف لكل شوارع في مصر حتى يمكن غسلها. و مع أن هذه عملية باهظة التكاليف في دولة اقتصادها ضعيف، و مع تسليم بوجود أولويات ومشاكل اكثر إلحاحاً فإن هناك كثيرا من الأسباب التي تجعل من المستحيل تجاهل الأضرار الناتجة عن عدم وجود صرف في شوارع. و من هذا الأسباب الصحة و نظافة و الاقتصاد و الجمال.[1]

[2]أما فيما يتعلق بالصحة فمن البديهي أن[3] التراب الذي تثيرة السيارات و الحافلات و هي تسير في الطرقات يصير عالقا في الهواء فيتنفسه كافة الناس؛ و لا ريب أن ذلك يؤدى إلى مضار جمة للجهاز التنفسى. و كما هو معلوم للجميع فإنّ عادم السيارات أيضاً له تأثير جد ضار فإذا امتزج الاثنان تضاف الضرر.

و من حيث النظافة، فإن هذا التراب عندما يثور في الهواء فإنه يجد طريقه إلى البيوت في الستائر و على المقاعد و سائر المفروشات و الملابس و كافة الاغراض و المواعين. أما في الطرقات، فلكنا نعرف كيف تتسخ ملابسنا و أحذيتنا و أظافرنا بسبب التراب. و عندما يأتي المطر فإن الطرق تصير موحلة، مما يؤدي بدوره إلى اتساخ المداخل و الممرات و السيارات و الأحذية و ما إلى ذلك.[4]

أما الاقتصاد فإن التراب يتغلغل في الأجهزة ويؤثت على حسن أدائها و يضاعف من معدل استهلاكها نتيجة زيادة تآكلها بفعل هذا التراب الذى له تأثير الصنفرة. و لذلك فمن البديهي أن يقل العمر الافتراضي لهذه الاجهزة كثيرا، مما يؤدى إلى تحميل الدولة الأفراد أعباء اقتصادية لا داعى لها.

و أخيرا فمن الناحية الجمالية[5] فإننا كلنا نفرح لمنظر الخضرة الرقيق و النضر بعد غسل المطر للأشجار و نباتات و زهور و لكن لا يكاد يمر وقت قصير حتى يعود التراب يغطي كل شي فيضيع الإحساس بالجمال و النظافة. و نحن إن أمعنا النظر في المبانى و البيوت فسوف نجد أن كثير منها جميل. و لكنه جمال طمسته الاوساخ فحرمتنا من متعة.

نهايةً فلو أن هناك مصارف في الشوارع لكان المطر قد غسل كثيراً من مشاكلنا. [6]

Comments

[6] The final, final thought. In English essays this would have been in the same paragraph, but note that here it stands alone. 

Letter Template

٢٣ فبراير ١٩٩٢

حضرة الأستاذ المحترم الدكتور شعبان عبد الغفور رئيس شركة كهرباء مصر الجديدة

                                                                 تحية طيبة وبعد؛

فأرجو من سيادتكم الموافقة على تركيب عداد كهرباء في سنكي الخاص و عنوانه:

الجلمية الجديدة

٥ حارة السد

الدور ٢

الشقة ٣

و تفضلوا بقبول التحية و الاحترام؛

مقدمه: بيومي خميس أبو ليلة

No doubt, using pictures for learning is good. So the Oxford Picture Dictionary has an obvious draw. Unfortunately, the language learning tools in this book are all geared towards ESL rather than AFL. I ended up treating this book as a lengthy wordlist, as I went through and wrote down for memorization words that I didn’t know that I thought would be useful. As a wordlist, the book was useful, but there are many caveats:

· All the selection of vocabulary is based around ‘American life’ i.e. there’s a whole page devoted to different types of cars, and nothing related to religion.

· All of the exercises are all in English

· There is no pronunciation guide for Arabic terms

· Many English terms are very literally translated into Arabic phrases, and no effort was made to find the various more appropriate عامية  terms. This means that if you use the words given an Arab would probably know what you are saying, but notice very distinctly that you are speaking like a foreigner.  

·  The dictionary focuses on nouns nearly to the exclusion of all other parts of speech.

So the question becomes: is $16 too much to pay for a wordlist of nouns? Probably. All these words exist in other dictionaries like the Hans Wehr, or Oxford’s English-Arabic dictionary. Both of these are locations where the reader will likely find better and more comprehensive coverage. 

2/5 Stars

Appropriate Level: 0 to 2+

Every book I’ve read on Arabic pedagogy has singled out the CASA program as the paragon of Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) education for native English speakers. Simply put, it takes the best teachers combines them with the best students, and mixes it with significant funding, immersive education and vast program experience. The quality of the CASA program also stands in stark contrast to the uneven quality of advanced AFL education, both in America and abroad.

So it’s no surprise that the fellowship is very selective and becoming more so. When one of my professors recounted his experience of applying for the program in 2000, he recounted that he had never read Arabic beyond the paragraph level before the test, and had taken about a year of college Arabic. He got in, and must have been an Arabic genius! But since then, things have become much more competitive.

CASA Fellows and Applicants 2000-2009

An important note is that as applications increase, their quality has increased as well. The requirement for sitting the test has recently increased to three years of college Arabic, and most who sit for the test have at least a year in-country and usually more than three years studying the language.

The CASA program screens out most applicants via a difficult admissions test with three sections: reading (40), listening (30) and writing (30). There used to be a phone interview, but this has been scaled back to admitted applicants

The 2009 Test:

Of the 162 applicants this year, only 124 were fully graded because 38 had scores too low on the first two sections to merit a complete grading.

Of these 124, the average score was 45.93 of 100 and the median was 55. The highest was 85 and the lowest was 24. While I don’t know where the cutoff is, I know that my score of 54.37 was just short, so as of 2009 a score of high 50’s or low 60’s on the test is a minimum to be considered for the program. But if the trend of the past decade is any guide, this bar will be continually raised as American universities continue to increase their output of advanced Arabic students.

The moral? If you want to get into CASA in the future, start studying… now.

In the next section I will detail my experience with the test. 

The OPI will be taken by every advanced student at some point. 10-30 minutes on the phone in an all-Arabic meandering conversation, focused on eliciting opinions and stories from the test taker. I took my first OPI with the State Department, and completed a second test for the University of Maryland Flagship Program.  

Preparation

The first time I took an OPI I was still reading Al-Kitaab vol. II.  My week long preparation was simply ‘study more Arabic’.

This time I knew better. When I found out I was shortlisted for UMD, my first instinct was to read more news in Arabic. But upon reflection I concluded this was the wrong approach. With two days to prepare, I had to focus. I tried to find news reports on things that would likely come up in the test, such as the financial crisis or news about Obama’s speech in front of Congress.  I remembered my experience being flustered trying to explain the reasons for the weakness of the dollar in September, and so probably overfocused on economic issues.

Then I prepared a list of questions, recorded myself speaking them, and then recorded my answers in an attempt to identify systematic errors. For an example of the limits of my abilities, you can listen to me flounder trying to explain my opinion on the auto industry bailout.

Finally, I loaded up Skype and had an hour-long conversation with a Saudi language exchange partner in Medina the night before the test.

General Structure

The purpose of the OPI is to dial in language ability quickly, for any level on the ILR scale. Testers are paired with a native speaker who asks questions, and there is often another observer in the room. The first thing the tester will do is establish an upper and lower limit to conversational skills. Based on my experience, the lower bound can be a topic like the weather, and the upper bound is an obscure or technical news topic. Finally, the tester can read an article in English and then ask the applicant to translate. There was no translation during my first OPI, likely because it was clear my proficiency was not advanced.

This Test

Immediately after introductions, we started out with the weather, where I complained about the snow in Seattle. Dr. Abdelfattah then asked me to ‘describe myself’ which led into a conversation about why I have three degrees and why I would choose to do Islamic studies even though I could earn more in Computer Science. We then moved to politics: ‘ماذا رأيك عن أوباما؟’ a question has come up on every Arabic test this year. We talked about the economy, مما I talked about layoffs at Microsoft and attempted to describe how the recession was helping me: Deep recession يسبب quantitative easing يسبب inflation يسبب real value of student loans to decrease. I was surprised at how naturally the conversation flowed. Everything was a topic I have at some point discussed with a stranger at my favorite café. Finally, he read a BBC news article in English, which I had to summarize and give an opinion on in Arabic. I had some trouble describing the ‘vegetative state’ mentioned in the article, to which I said something like “ظرف جمدي”. I probably should have said ‘غيبوبة’ or ‘كوما’ or even ‘ظرف مجمد’.  

Thoughts

For a test designed to produce a quantified score, results are hard to come by. When I took the OPI with the State Department in September, I only was notified that I passed, meaning I had an ILR score at least 2. This time I was hoping to achieve a 3, though I will not be privy to the results. Both times, the tester spoke Fusha مطلقاً and the only عامية  عباراتin the conversation were my vestigial ‘أيوه’s from time in Syria.

Call quality is a big issue. The State Department insisted that I call from a land line, and I had to call from a café: bad idea. This time I used my cellphone at my house and the tester did not use speakerphone, making the test much easier. 

Have any horror stories from Arabic phone interviews? Let me know in the comments below. 

How do you render an Arab speechless?

تعقيد يديه

(You tie his hands)

Anecdotal evidence abounds in how gestures relate to expressing language, few have focused on how gesturing can help learning.  For example ISP Nation’s book on vocabulary acquisition contains no references to gestures, and it is nearly impossible for Arabic textbooks to deal with gestures other than the ones that differ wildly from western tradition: i.e. hand on the head, eyes up etc. 

But don’t let that stop you from waving your arms like a madman! Research is showing that gesturing plays a key role in problem solving. According to the Economist:

Dr Goldin-Meadow had noted that children often use spontaneous gestures when explaining how they solve mathematical puzzles so, to see if these hand-movements actually help a child to think, or are merely descriptive, she divided a group of children into two and asked them to balance equations. One group was asked to gesture while doing so. A second was asked not to. Both groups were then given a lesson in how to solve problems of this sort.

As Dr Goldin-Meadow suspected, the first group learnt more from the lesson than the second. By observing their gestures she refined the experiment. Often, a child would touch or point to the first two numbers on the left with the first two fingers of one hand. Dr Goldin-Meadow therefore taught this gesture explicitly to another group of children. Or, rather, she taught a third of them, taught another third to point to the second and third numbers this way, and told the remainder to use no gestures. When all were given the same lesson it was found those gesturing “correctly” learnt the most. But those gesturing “incorrectly” still outperformed the non-gesturers.

Gestures are also key to vocabulary development in infants. A recent report published in Science  found the following:

The level of gesturing at 14 months is linked to the vocabulary level at 4.5 years; the income and education of parents also played a role. For instance, during the first session, the children from high-income households gestured 24 times, compared to 13 gestures from kids in low-income homes. And when both groups were tested for vocabulary, the kids from the high-income families scored 117, compared to 93 in the other group.

This matches with my experience. When studying endless Arabic wordlists, I have found it helpful to use gestures in memorizing  vocabulary. Here’s a few examples from recent words on my list:

Finally, let’s not forget the other benefits of gestures, they increase fluency and can be more persuasive. Just check out this interview of Bashar al-Assad while he was in Paris last year. His hands are constantly moving!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaqzXX2WTck&feature=PlayList&p=7DE07A4A3B2BFDFE&index=62]

Original review مكتبوب بالعربية مالكسورة:

This is the perspective of reading the book in Arabic from a native English speaker:

How do I describe a collection of short stories like this? Clearly, it is impossible to doubt the quality of the stories, each of which was interesting and entertaining in its own right. My favorites were the ‘Tale of the Lamp’ in which we see a starved traveler stumble upon a rich kingdom, and ‘The Night and the Sea’ which painted a bleak but moving picture with its rich descriptions and overwhelming emotions.

Unfortunately, the beautiful use of language means that the language is also suitably hard. Devilishly hard. Consider the first sentence of the first (supposedly easiest) story:

“اشتهيت الازاد و انا ببغداد، عفواً، بل زعموا  والله اعلم أن سنة جفاف و القحط و المحل و المجاعة و المسغبة عفانا الله!” (حكاية القنديل ص ١٧)

They claimed, and god knows it was true, that it was a year of drought, famine, misery, hunger and starvation, god preserve us all.  P. 18

Or this sentence from Naguib Mahfouz’s short story about Siamese twins:

“و فارت من الأعماق موجة عمياء جرفت ستر الحياء، فارتطم  الاندفاع بالندم” (قسمتي و نصيبي ١٢٦)

They would clash in a vortex of fiery and crazed outbursts. A raging wave would emerge from the depths, removing any sense of shame while impetuosity superseded regret. P. 126

I would like to think of myself as an advanced student, despite my terrible writing, but I found many of these stories extraordinarily hard. Were it not for the translations in English these stories would have been too much to handle. I tried to read the entire Arabic story before resorting to the English translation however I found myself switching back after only a page to make sure that I understood the next section in Arabic. Also, when I showed the book to a group of Saudi friends, and as soon as one opened up the book and read the first sentence, one asked me ماذا  قنديل؟ after saying, “This stuff is hard for us too.”

Considering the difficulty of the texts, the structure of footnotes and translation is important. But I was disappointed by how the book placed footnotes and the end of the story, necessitating multiple bookmarks and needless page flipping. Worse, the translations did not line up with the Arabic, and often spilled over on to the next page. So reading these stories was harder than it could have been.

In the end, the important thing is that there are translations, and for that this book deserves praise. But be warned, if you want to read this for its Arabic content, be prepared for a challenge. 

3.5/5 Stars

Appropriate Level: 2+to 5

For information on the contained short stories, check out this blog.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOT7AOhei-M]

Justify it to yourself by telling yourself there are a few good vocab words in there.

Via a Saudi friend on Facebook.

Official Description of the Program

Official Description af the Test

Flight to Baltimore, light rail to Camden Yards, MARC to College Park station, shuttle to UMD campus, and a mercifully short walk through the bitter cold to Jimenez hall and the test. When I walked into the room, the Hans-Wehr situated within arm’s reach of every waiting student confirmed I was in the right place.

The tests revealed the diversity, if paucity, of Arabic students in America. There was David, who spent a year in Sana’a, Kat, who was in her 3^rd year with Johns Hopkins Arabic, Evan and Rachel, who had both spent a year at ALI and everyone else that I didn’t get a chance to talk to. Oddly, there were no conversations in Arabic, as if everyone was hoarding linguistic skills for the test.   So the group sat and chatted nervously until 10:00 came and the program director started the proceedings. Of 90 who had completed the registration, only 25 took the test in Maryland, with something like an equal number presumed to have taken the test elsewhere.

The Test 

We started with the listening section, with passages about the presidential inauguration, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, and a pushy interview with an Egyptian about an Arab summit in Kuwait. All the questions were written in English (What’s up with this trend?) and the answers could be in English or in Arabic. The thing that threw me was questions with misleading information. One asked when Masdar City was expected to be completed, even though the report gave no such information. I’m not saying that I understood the whole thing with crystalline comprehension, but words likeسنة , شهر, or مستقبل  were entirely absent from the report.

The reading section was short and with weird questions. All passages were from الشرق الأوسط, one on the aftermath of Gaza, one on unemployment in Saudi Arabia due to the financial crisis, and an opinion on Syrian direct negotiations with Israel. The passages themselves were much easier than the CASA test, but the questions seemed imprecise to me: “What is your opinion on the author’s main idea?”

Finally was translation and writing. The writing prompt was something like   تكتب مقالة عن شخصية أوباما و هل تعتقد أن يرمز بداية جديدة للامريكا؟  I feel like for anyone preparing for an Arabic writing test in America, they would only need to study the most general current event in America and memorize an Arabic essay describing it. I ended up writing about his economic policies, since that’s what I was listening about on the Economist on the train to the University. I’m not sure how coherent the essay actually was. The translation was a wire report about stem cells, seemed to be the type of thing that you either understood or you didn’t.

Thoughts

There was a wide range of students taking the test. One left after the first section because the test was so far above her level. Another finished the entire test while everyone else was still on the reading section. During the break, I asked:

لماذا تريدين ان تنضمي في هذا البرنامج؟ تتكلمين و تكتبين اللغة فصيحاً و جيداً!

 قالت: نعم أعرف اللغة و لكن أريد ان أتحسن مهارة المترجمة

Still, the program only requires ‘2 years’ of Arabic or an ILR level of 1+. Perhaps the oddest thing is that the scholarship and admissions are determined completely independently. It’s possible to be admitted without the scholarship, or get the scholarship without being admitted. Federal funding at its best.

The next step of phone interviews will happen in about a week. Quick turnaround!