I just passed the A1 level Test of Russian as a Foreign Language (TORFL). Except for writing, I am satisfied with my score. I am not sure why my grade is only 85% for writing. Perhaps it’s because my story line is a little messy. Two months before the exam, I had to change my teacher. Fortunately, I came upon Polina on instagram (ig: @russianskype). She did an excellent job of preparing me for the exam. I would not have scored so well if it hadn’t been for her guidance.
My Score
One thing I discovered about the test was that it was not entirely random. It was designed for the students of RLC (Russian Language Center) Singapore. Texts in random sample tests, like those in the book shown below, can cover a wide range of topics from simple daily conversations, to more sophisticated texts on historical exhibition. However, all the texts in the test only revolved around the topics covered in RLC textbooks. As I studied outside RLC, I had to learn all the themes that may potentially come up in a random test. As a result, my vocabularies substantially grew, and I found the test easy to complete.
Random Sample Tests
Now, I’d like to share about the section of the test that I found the most difficult, speaking. Speaking test was conducted remotely with a teacher from the St. Petersburg State University. My examiner was called Oleg.
There were three parts to the speaking test. The first two parts were done spontaneously without any preparation. To ace speaking, I asked a lot of speaking samples from my teacher and practiced them with my boyfriend before the exam. My boyfriend advised me to take my time, and think a little bit before I speak.
However, as I was very nervous, I rushed into my answer and made grammatical mistakes. Fortunately, they were not a lot, because I did a lot of practice. At the end of the speaking test, Oleg told me, that I had excellent pronunciation, and therefore should continue my russian study. I was very encouraged by his words.