My mid-term exams are finally over and I already got my results.
听力: 98.5
综合（语法,etc..）: 98
阅读: 94

My results are okay but I’m not really satisfied with them. I was aiming for 95+ marks in all my papers, especially since it’s my first term here.
Note to myself: Spend less time online, less time on MSN messenger, less time watching chinese drama series, etc…. Spend about an hour doing given homework and personal work everyday, i.e study more.

The阅读考试 was a bit difficult compared to the others. I don’t know what came over the teacher but the paper was full of words we haven’t learned yet. The other students and I had a lot of ‘guessing’ to do. I had to be extra careful when writing the answers but I still made two silly mistakes. :sad:
Same for my 综合 exam. I lost the 2 marks in the easiest part of the paper; pinyin and made no mistakes in the essay or grammar parts. My 语法 teacher knows that I hate writing pinyin.

:no: I usually have no problems when it comes to reading pinyin but the writing part is another matter.
I write the pinyin right but sometimes I make mistakes when it comes to writing the tones. I have a problem with the 4th tone and neutral tone, the 2nd tone and 3rd tone. There are some chinese characters which are 4th tone characters but when there’s another chinese character in front of it (hence a compound word) , it becomes a neutral tone. Compound words with 3rd tone characters are read as 2nd tone in certain cases but the tone is still written as 3rd.

I didn’t expect having to write pinyin at university.
In Mauritius, the last time my Mandarin teacher made me write pinyin in an exam was back in primary school. In secondary school, the emphasis was more on the chinese characters. I guess that’s why I neglected my pinyin. My other Mauritian friend who’s in my uni also has the same problem.

When it comes to writing chinese characters, I forget how to write the characters sometimes. I never forget how to write the words I use quite often so I’m going to do more personal work and make sentences with the new words I learn. This way I’m more likely going to remember how to write them. I already talked to my 语法 teacher about it and she said that she’ll be glad to have a look at my sentences & essays and correct my mistakes.
Yes, it’s high time for me to do some personal work.

Unfortunately we don’t have Oral Chinese language exam for mid-term so I’m going to have to wait until the final term exam to know how an Oral chinese language exam is like.

I remember my first class at Tongji University.
Our first class was Oral Chinese language and we all had to stand up in turn and say our names, where we are from, our hobbies, number of people in family,etc.
The teacher asked us what we found most difficult when it comes to learning Mandarin. I said writing and remembering how to write the chinese characters.
My classmates said the speaking part (saying the tones right) or the grammar part. ah well.. It’s different for everyone.