2600 Spanish Study Guide for Exam 1 A. General Information 1. Students must take the exam(s) only during the regularly scheduled time. 2. Exam 1, as well as Exam 2 and the final, will focus primarily on the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), and the cultural information related to material covered in class for this exam. 3. Exam 1 will include (1) Speaking, (2) Listening Comprehension, (3) Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary, (4) Cultural Information, and (5) Writing. Each one of these components is worth 20%. 4. For Exam 1, students are to review caps. 8-10 in textbook Dos mundos (6th ed.), and do other exercises in Cuaderno de actividades (CA). Answers to most of these activities are found in the Answer Key and they will give you quick feedback on comprehension and written exercises. B. General Format of Exam 1 1. Speaking (20%) - This part of the exam typically consists of a series of questions chosen from representative material covered in captulos 8-10. In the actual test, your instructor will choose ten questions of the twenty questions that have been given to the student. You are to answer them using a complete sentence. - Directions to do text. In this section, your instructor will ask you ten questions in Spanish, read twice at a slow, normal conversational speed. You will have ten seconds to answer each question. - Criteria of evaluation. This part will be evaluated based on comprehensibility, content, fluency, grammatical use, and pronunciation accuracy. - See the list of questions for this section on page 3. 2. Listening Comprehension (20%) - To get prepared for this part, take advantage of all activities found in Dos mundos package (textbook and CA), in particular, review sections called Actividades auditivas (Listening comprehension activities, marked with a headphone icon) corresponding to caps. 8-10 in your CA. Keep in mind that there is an Answer Key to the Actividades auditivas, and to other written exercises, at the end of CA. - The listening comprehension activities, included in the CA, are intended primarily to be used by students outside of class. There are some listening guides to help students approach these activities in a systematic way. See AStrategies for the Actividades Auditivas@ in Preface of CA, pp. xi-xii. - In this section, your instructor will include four listening comprehension exercises from your workbook/laboratory manual (CA, caps. 8 and 10), and/or from other sources.
2 3. Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary (20%) - Read as many Lecturas (Readings) as possible in CA (caps.8-10) as you will find there many words and phrases that have appeared in various class activities. To get the gist of the reading, first, look at the title, and then read the introduction and summary rapidly, as well as paragraphs that have topic sentences indicating that they contain important information. In addition, you may try to understand the main idea (the gist) of the reading by using the linguistic context. Keep in mind that the more Spanish you read, the more Spanish you will be able to understand and to speak. Some suggestions that will help you work with the readings are listed on page x in CA. - The formats to be used in testing reading skills will include multiple-choice options in Spanish, True and False and correction of statements that are false, and answering questions in Spanish based on information given in reading. - For testing vocabulary, multiple-choice items and/or completion of sentences are used. 4. Cultural Information (20%) The text Dos mundos offers a wide variety of cultural materials in every chapter. The cultural information particularly appears in sections Ventanas culturales, Ventanas al pasado, Enlace literario y Lectura. In Resumen cultural (in CA), you will fund written exercises to help you review Hispanic cultural content presented in Dos mundos. In Escenas culturales (in CA), you will find a brief cultural information on the Hispanic countries introduced in captulos 8-10. - This part of the exam will be based primarily on the cultural information as presented in Informacin cultural (handout) (caps.8, 9, and 10). - The formats used for testing this part of the exam include matching exercises, True and False and correction of statements that are false, completion of statements, and identification giving appropriate information. 5. Writing (20%) - Grammar accuracy together with vocabulary, content, and organization are the main categories to evaluate this part of the exam. - Take advantage of all the Actividades escritas (written activities found in the CA), and other writing exercises (Tareas) as they will allow students to express their ideas in written Spanish on the topics presented in each chapter, and help them prepare to do well in exams. - To get prepared for the writing sample of this exam write a minimum of ten-sentence paragraph on each one of the topics given below. The day of the exam, students will be given two topics of the four, and they will select one to write a composition of at least 10 sentences. Topics for practice: 1. Imagnese que usted va a participar en un concurso (context) de cocina. Describa el platillo que usted va a presentar en el concurso. Indique qu ingredientes tiene el platillo y cmo se prepara. 2. Describa cmo era un da tpico en su escuela secundaria. Incluya la hora de llegada y de salida
3 del colegio, las clases que estudiaba, lo que tomaba para el almuerzo (comida, bebida), las personas con quienes almorzaba, los deportes que practicaba, cmo se diverta los fines de semana, etc. 3. Escriba sobre un lugar famoso que usted ha visitado. Indique cundo fue all, con quin fue all y por qu le impresion ese lugar. Pas usted mucho tiempo all o estuvo slo pocos das? Explique por qu le gust o no le gust ese lugar famoso. Desea volv...