u/Phyrefli

Took the test in Stockholmsmässan yesterday. Some comments.

Organisation:

1. Doors opened at 08:15. The outside line to get into the mässan had pretty much disappeared by 08:40.
2. Instructions were that only paper kallelse were allowed, but plenty of people didn't have them and instead had their invites on their phones
3. Inside it was well-organised. A, B, C, D sections. You had a specific seat assigned to you.
4. The UHR folks were super nice (folks in purple t-shirts) when asked questions. Also, they spoke very easy to understand Swedish
5. The outside doors closed at 0930
6. Desks had a plastic bag for your belongings, 2 white UHR pencils with erasers on the ends, and a sheet of instructions
7. At 10 the exam was supposed to start (I think?) but there were still people going to the toilets
8. At 10 they started to go through folks, ask them to remove things from their desks (water flasks, cups, etc.) and encourage folks to put all electronic devices in the plastic bag that was on the desk
   1. Again, the instructions were that no food or water was allowed, but some folks had water bottles, and there were free plastic cups + water in the hall. However, you did have to remove these from your desk before the start of the exam
9. The only things you were supposed to have on your desk were the exam paper, pencils, erasers, and your ID. This meant the written instructions went on the floor under your desk
10. Actual exam started at 1030, finished at 12. We were out by abou 1215
11. As this was in an exhibition hall with a concrete floor, it was borderline impossible to understand what was said over the loudspeakers. Most of it was just a repeat of what was in the written instructions though
12. Coming out of the mässan was awesome! There were loads of friends and relatives all waiting and smiling at the folks coming out of the hall. It was like that scene from Love Actually. Really helped ram home the importance of this test for us all. That was a sweet moment.

Questions & Preparation:

1. Questions were about the level I expected. Since you have to have lived in Sweden at least 8 years to take this test, so long as you've not been buried under a rock you can probably answer about 30-40% of questions just based on that everyday knowledge
2. So long as you did a reasonable amount of revision, you should be able to get to 75% or above fairly easily
3. I listened to the audio material about 6 times over a few weeks, read through all the reading material once, and scanned through the reading material several times the night before the test, and the morning of the test. I'll be pretty disappointed if I get under 80%.
4. While I was revising I also fed the material into Gemini and asked it to generate several 60-question four-choice exams based on the utbildningsmaterial. Did these practise exams several times, and they really helped with preparation.
5. Since the exam isn't that hard (then again, any exam you properly prepare for isn't hard, so, meh) I'm not sure where they'll set the pass mark. If they only want, say, 25% of people to pass, I suspect the pass mark is going to be >80%. But, if they're only focused on making sure that folks know the basics, they may set it around 60%. These are pure guesses, so ymmv.
6. I took my time with the exam. Yes, you can do it in 20 mins (as one news outlet reported someone doing). But, why speed-run something this important? Used all the old school exam routines:
   1. Read through all questions first to give your brain time to start processing the ones that you do not know
   2. Then go through the questions again, and answer only the ones you are 100% certain you know the answers to (this was 43 questions out of the 60 for me)
   3. Then, keep running through the questions and focus on the ones you do not know. Doing it this way gives your brain time to process and remember info for those questions, so you have a better chance to get them correct

Final Thoughts:

I'm still highly frustrated with Tidö for forcing folks who've waited years in the MV queue to go through this rigmarole by applying the new rules to folks who were already in the queue. But, I'm glad that Sweden has introduced this test. I've learned a lot about Sweden that I'd not have otherwise learnt, and it feels good that I know much more about my (hopefully soon to be) adoptive home country.

Got my röstkort through Kivra this morning. Looking forward to that vote in a few weeks...

If you do not have a reasonably good level of Swedish, don't take this test. You need it to understand the source material, and (obviously) read the questions. If you're at SFI 3D level, you'll be OK.

Pic attached. Taken from my hotel room about 0830, so you can see how much of the line had already gone.