This time I want to speculate on my experience of the mock CPE exam which I took last weekend in Yekaterinburg.
I must say it was rather challenging and really difficult for me. I felt like my brain was going to explode at times.
Well,for those who don't know what it looks like the exam is divided into listening, reading and use of English and writing.
Listening included three pieces among which there were some conversations between students and a presentation where we had multiple choice questions and the last piece was 6 speakers speculating on a definite topic and the task was to answer two sets of questions simultaneously.(that task almost killed me). My general impression was that the speech was unnaturally fast as if it was speeded up a bit. To add to this it was painfully difficult: we listened to it twice and it still sounded like humming!

Reading and use of English included such tasks as word or sentence formation, choosing a word and writing your own words, reading and inserting the missing paragraphs, scanning for certain ideas in the texts. I started to feel more confident here, nevertheless, it was rather mind-boggling.

The last but not the least was writing, only one part: we had to read and speculate on the ideas in two texts. Although the topic was clear I felt ideas evaporating, leaving my mind as blank as a white sheet.

That would have been a terrible exam if it was real, but as you can see in the photo we are happy to have taken it as it was a unique experience that made us think more carefully about this exam.

I believe the idea of mock tests is incredibly useful as a person will have an opportunity to estimate their ability to pass it more objectively.

That was my last weekend, and what did you do?