Dip Trans Exam

Now, the big day is over, the exam for the Institute of Linguists' Diploma in Translation is all done and dusted - and what an exam it was!

I had travelled down to Birmingham the day before, on the 14th of January and stayed in a serviced apartment in walking distance of the exam centre, the University College of Birmingham. I had brought with me a travelcase full of dictionaries, including my new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a copy of the "Spiegel" and the "Profil" magazines and a list of law terminology compiled by myself. 

On the morning of the 15th I just about managed to get some coffee down, but I couldn't face any breakfast. I walked over to the centre for 9 o'clock, so I had half an hour to spread out all my books and to write my candidate details and language combination on a number of exam sheets. I was the only candidate there to deliver the exam in handwriting, all the others were working on PCs.

The clock for the first paper was started at 9:36 and the next three hours just went by in a concentrated haze. It is very different working in longhand, as you can't go back and delete as easily as on a computer and you have to be a lot more precise about what you are going to put down in word before you actually put it down. I did not do too bad in this first general part and had even plenty of time to read through and make some amendments. But there was more to come...

Lunch came and went and I had to force myself to some fruit and biscuits.

Then the second paper. I chose Business and some business that was! There were several terms I struggled with and I'm afraid my translations are quite a long way off the mark. I also ran out of time and had no time to read it through again. It was good to learn afterwards, that others had felt the same.

For the third paper I chose Law. I actually found myself in a bit of a dilemma here: Law is the subject I have actually most experience in translating and is the one, together with Business, I had prepared for the exam, but when I skimmed through the Science option I thought that that text looked a lot easier to do and so it was "Do I stick with what I know, even thought it seems harder or shall I venture into new terrain and risk it, just because on first sight it seems easier?" Well, you already know the answer. But if it was the right one, I shall only know in three months time...

7 Hours of examination is a lot, but the day just flew by and at the end of it I felt both exhausted and exhilarated and "so tired I could not sleep".

For now it's just "abwarten und Tee trinken!"