The english diagnostic test

So, you've just arrived in Dunedin. You've probably had a few days to settle in and it's finally dawning on you - "I'm here! HSFY is about to start!"

In a strangely appropriate manner HSFY doesn't start with a welcome though. No - it starts with a test. :(

Some people do get awfully nervous about this, the english diagnostic test, and I can understand that - you're worried that it may disadvantage you in getting a place in your desired course, you're suffering from typical health sci paranoia, and for many of you english was always your weakest subject at school - a subject you were only too happy to dump in year 13.

The message I want to try and get across here is don't worry. It is a very easy test, and you don't need to have done very well at secondary school english to pass, nor do you need to have done english in year 13. It's in the middle of o week and last year there were people sitting it with a massive hangover and no year 13 english under their belt, and they passed.

It's mainly aimed at people for whom english is a second language and don't quite have it grasped. Ocassionally there is an upset and some competant person fails but there is a resit later on so it works out alright. Even if you fail that the penalty is only that you have to take a remedial english course (though to be honest that's probably a very good thing for people who manage to fail the test twice).

The sections are:

1. You listen to a recorded 10 minute lecture and answer questions as you do so. For us the lecturer was some american lady who spoke really slowly and repeated everything a good 2 or 3 times. We were allowed to answer questions while the recording was playing, so this was not hard. You don't have to remember the exact wording of what is said or anything - this component is just making sure that you can sit in a lecture and take in the educational points being made.
2. 3 sentences of increasing complexity are read out (once for each), and after each you have to write it down (i.e. dictation). The sentences read out consisted only of words that an average person should be expected to know and use. I recall that the third sentence (the longest) was slightly challenging just because it was a fair bit to remember at once, but that was about the only difficult bit in the whole test. In terms of remembering the whole sentence, as long as you are prepared for the sentence to be read out and are concentrating fully on it, this isn't really a problem.
3. You read a short article and answer questions (e.g. "what would a good title be for this article?", or extracting some basic facts from it).
4. You have to write a short essay on one of 3 given topics. I think the one I did was "how could New Zealand stop medical graduates from moving overseas?". You only get about 25 minutes so the essay doesn't have to be very long, and anything that could pass NCEA L1 formal writing could pass here. Don't worry about the quality of your points - as long as you can communicate them that's what matters.
   

So yeah, believe me when I say this test is the easiest you will do in HSFY. If you really feel the need to prepare for it I suppose you could practice with a couple of L1 formal writing essays, getting someone else to read out stuff from the newspaper for you to write down, and by reading articles in the newspaper/listening to stories on the radio news then summarising them to someone else. Honestly though, I reckon 95% of the people in HSFY would have passed the first time around without any preparation at all.

Just remember that unlike any other test you will do in HSFY, this one isn't here to rank you. It is here (and I am serious) to help you - to identify anyone who needs help with their english and then provide that help.