u/plinydogg

Hallo Leute. I'm wondering what others would do in my situation.

I started learning German a few years ago simply because the German-speaking world is a never-ending source of fascination for me. I love German writers, music, and just the general culture. I've visited a few times, and these visits have just confirmed my interest.

Learning German for me is, in other words, just a hobby. I do not need to pass a language exam for work, or to emigrate, or anything like that. But somewhere along the way, I decided I would take learning the language seriously, and after taking various online placement tests, I decided I would take the Goethe B1 Exam.

To that end, I've been working on the language in the usual ways and I've taken a number of practice tests. I source these practice tests from the Hueber Zertifikat B1 Neu book. Grading the lesen and hören portions of the practice tests is a straightforward matter of checking the answer key. For the schreiben part, I have mainly been giving Claude the prompts, writing my answers, and asking Claude to grade my responses. I've supplemented this with various online test prep tools that allow one to practice writing (e.g., Lingviko, Deutsch Fox, etc.). For sprechen, I have been using a combination of apps like Lingviko, Issen, and Langua Talk.

So far, I've taken about 7+ practice exams, and I am getting remarkably consistent results every time:

• I have never failed a single section of any of these mock exams.
• My average total score on these exams has never fallen outside of the 77-82% range.
• My average scores on the four portions of the exam are:
  • Lesen = 91%
  • Hören = 86%
  • Schreiben = 70%
  • Sprechen = 70%

All of this gets me to the question I'm hoping some of you may have some feedback on. I could keep working on my German for another year or something and increase these schreiben and sprechen scores, but I really don't feel like doing that. I kind of just want to go ahead and take this test. If you were me, would you go ahead and take the exam if you thought you would pass with a mediocre score or would you delay and keep working in the hopes of getting a better score later?

The next exam in my city is towards the end of October so I've got some time to think about it. Thank you in advance!

I'm planning to take the Goethe B1 exam at some point and have a quick question about the schreiben portion that I'm hoping someone who has taken the test can answer: when you're writing letters/emails, do you include a date in the upper right hand corner? Everything I've read about writing emails suggests that this is something that should be done in a real email, but no test prep materials that I've seen say anything about this. Thanks in advance.

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Thank you in advance!

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[Edit: thank you all so much for your replies. This has been extremely helpful!]