101 Series: Stumbling upon Aufnahmeprüfung/ANP (pt. 1)

بِسْمِ ٱللّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيم

Assalamu'alaikum

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Hallo, Lieblings!

How are you today?

At this particular time of the year, I think most people who are going to enter Studienkolleg in the upcoming Winter Semester in September/October are busy preparing for the entrance exam -- the holy Aufnahmeprüfung (ANP). Jjeng, here I am ready to tell you guys some introduction about the ANP itself including tips and hacks you guys might find it useful to prepare for your study! 😄

For those who are actually interested in reading my actual experience of going to the Studienkolleg, I recommend you to read The First Footsteps series part 4, Aufnahmeprüfung (ANP) Dramas + Important Travel Tips. Here, I’m just going to explain (kind of) briefly of what ANP actually is.

What is Aufnahmeprüfung (ANP)?

Aufnahmeprüfung (ANP) literally means entrance examination in English. This is a test that soon-to-be students must take in order to enter Studienkolleg (university preparatory course) before entering University. The test between each University might differ, that’s why you should check it one by one. No worries, normally the Uni will provide its soon-to-be students with sample ANP questions.

TIP: To get the sample questions, enter the keywords "ANP Studienkolleg Uni (the name of the Uni) Musterbeispiel" in the google search, and voila! Don't forget to download it.

Nevertheless, the test generally consists of 2 main subjects:

1. German,
2. Additional subject depending on which course you are taking (M/T/G/W/S Kurs).

For more info about Studienkolleg, I've written some posts about it too regarding my experience and also the must-know stuff about Studienkolleg!

Let me give you an example.
I wanted to take M-Kurs entrance exams in Studienkolleg Marburg, Studienkolleg Halle, and Studienkolleg Heidelberg. In Marburg, I was obliged to take Mathematics and German. In Halle, the ANP I needed to write was German and Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology – yes, three). Whereas in Heidelberg, I only needed to prepare for German. Your course is no guarantee that you'll only take certain subjects in the exam.

The Exam in a nutshell

We all now knew that each university has different subjects to be tested. To make things easier, I’m using practice questions (mainly) from Uni Halle. You can download the questions here: https://www.studienkolleg.uni-halle.de/aufnahmetest/.

Along with some brief explanations about the types of exams, I'm going to sparkle them with some hacks too! Please be wise of taking the tips, as everyone has unique ways of learning. You don't have to follow the exact same thing that I did. 🙅

In general, the foremost thing to do before the exam is actually done as many practice questions as possible. I mean it. Download all practice questions (Musterbeispiel) from as many universities as possible, regardless you apply to it or not. Repeat it again and again until it’s stuck in your mind that you might bring it to your sleep.

Back to the topic.
The subjects, that are being tested in Uni Halle Studienkolleg entrance exam depending on each course are:

• M Kurs: German + Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology)
• T Kurs: German + Math
• G Kurs: Geman + English
• W Kurs: German + Math
• S Kurs: they aren’t offering S Kurs classes, sadly.

The German test includes: C-Test, Leseverstehen (reading), Schreiben (writing)

Writing The German Exam

In the German exam, most universities will give you these types of tests:

•  C-Test,
• grammar/Grammatik,
• listening/Hörverstehen,
• reading/Lesen,
• writing/Schreiben.

Before you start, please do take your time to read the instructions. They are as important as your answers, don’t ever belittling them.

Translations

Your entrance exam would only be scored, if you observe these instructions:

• Helping aids (e.g. dictionaries, cell phones) and outside help is not allowed.
• The use of pencil and (pen with) the color red is not allowed.
• Tearing apart the clamped test documents is not permitted.
• Please stop the test immediately as instructed by the examiner.

#1 C-Test (fill in the blanks) – 10 min ~ 45 min depending on the number of questions

In this certain exam, we have to fill in the blanks with the right words or even complete the word. Here, let me give one sample question.

Challenge: Could be the trickiest. You’ve got so so many possibilities and options to write yet the time is very short.

Hint: Your vocabulary and your grammatical skills are being tested in this exam. Both quality and quantity are important, think fast and correctly

Tips:

• Get a good grip on grammatical structures and the detail like articles (der, die, das).
• Read as many texts as possible, either from German news like Deutsche Welle, Deutsche Welle Top Thema, Die Zeit, and tagesschau.
• Borrow German books from the libraries or buy books from Amazon kindle (kids books, preferably).
• Read not only the news but also fictional stories like fables or children's stories. You can use an app like Beelinguapp. It's an app where you can read children's stories and even listen to audiobooks. 👶

#2 Grammartik (Grammar) – approx. 45 min

Not all universities include this one in their entrance exam questions. From all the ANP that I've written, only Uni Heidelberg includes Grammar. Others only bother to infuse the grammatical aspect with the C-Test. Download the sample questions of Uni Heidelberg here: http://www.isz.uni-heidelberg.de/e_pruef_et.html.

Challenge: no one knows which kind of question would come, could be this easy or even harder. If you look at the sample questions, you can see why haha. Sorry, I'm too lazy to screenshot the other questions lol, this one is the shortest.

Hint:  any type of grammatical problem could possibly come, depending on the required German level. (B1/B2/C1)

Tips: DO. PRACTICE. QUESTIONS. 💪💪

#3 Hörverstehen (listening) – approx. 30 minutes, excluding the listening time

This type of exam requires your good understanding and comprehend information from the speaker. On the contrary of some might think, just by having one pair of ears doesn’t mean we are automatically good at listening. Need practice, definitely, Though Uni Halle wouldn’t ask you to do this type of test, others might. Again, Uni Heidelberg for example is kind of extra so they include this one too. Download the sample questions of Uni Heidelberg here: http://www.isz.uni-heidelberg.de/e_pruef_et.html.

The technical aspects might differ from each Uni, but based on my experience writing ANP in Uni Heidelberg, it’s mainly like this.

The examiner will read one text comprising approx. 30 lines twice. In the first read, the students are allowed to take notes on a piece of paper. After that, the students will be given the question papers and are allowed to read the questions (and scribble the answers there) while waiting for the second read by the examiner. After the second read, the students are given time to write the answers completely.

Challenge: the examiner will read one German text in German, in a German pace of speaking (sometimes slower though).

Hint: try your best to adapt your ears into listening to the German people talking in their normal pace (which is, DAmN faST at first. But no worries as time goes, it'll be ok). 🙉

Tips:

• Listen to lots of stuff in German EVERYDAY. Set 10-30 minutes from you 24 hours to actually listen.
• Watch Netflix not only with German subs but German dubs.
• Watch videos from German Youtubers! My personal favorites are Kurzgesagt, MaiLab, and Pocket Hazel. 
• Listen to Podcasts in German, my favorites are Forschung Aktuell, DW Top Thema, tagesthemen, Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten, and sometimes I do listen to Sternengeschichten. (I'm using Google podcast, FYI)
• Sometimes after I listen to a podcast or video, I tend to re-tell the content's context with my own words with xxxtra personal thoughts and record it. In that way, the words wouldn’t just slide from our left to right ear, but we are forcing our brain to actually comprehend and grasp the information. By recording it, I could easily spot the mistakes that I made while speaking. Trust me guys, talking is different.

#4 Leseverstehen (reading) – approx. 10 min

This type of exam could be in different forms, could either be diagrams or texts along with questions to answer. The answer might be in the form of multiple-choice or short answers, depending on the Uni. Here in Uni Halle, for years, they haven’t been changing the format from multiple choice answers.

Challenge: lotsa (preferably scientific) words that we might not be used in our daily activities. 👽

Hint: In the case of describing graphs, understand the format, and memorize the Redewendung – the usual phrases used in describing graphs might help. In the case of reading short texts, you need to have as many vocabularies as possible and the ability to comprehend information from sentences fast and correctly.

Read more: https://deutschtraining.org/methodik/grafikbeschreibung/ | https://www.lehrerfreund.de/schule/1s/beispiel-beschreibung-diagramm-schaubild/4246

Tips: Read as many usual phrases (Redewendung, tbh don't know how to translate it in English) about describing graph texts as possible. The more you used to it, the better ad easier your brain will comprehend the info coming.

#5 Schreiben (writing) – approx. 10 ~ 45 min depending on the questions

Test-takers are required to write one text from a wide spectrum of options. Sometimes it might be describing graphs or certain pictures, sometimes could be writing recount letters like this one that Uni Halle had given in their entrance exam.

Challenge: for me personally, writing in different languages is not the same. Most of the time, I have the idea and I know what to write but I just don’t know HOW I could express my idea because of the lack of my vocabulary.

Hint: enrich your vocabulary along with German idioms and phrases. The examiner will look at how good you can actually express your idea with the words from your certain level e.g. the vocabulary for level C1 has a wider variety than the vocabulary for level B2. If the test requires you to have the ability of B2 students, don't use only vocabs from the B1 levels!

Tips:

• Use suitable Nomen Verb Verbindung and Redewendungen (usual phrases, idk how to translate?) when describing graphs or tables. And yes, they are something you better memorize. They will give your exam paper kinda sparks and sparkles haha.
  (read more: https://www.grammatiktraining.de/nomenverb/grammatikliste-nomen-verb-verbindungen.html)
• Memorize the format of writing a letter (formal and personal), observe which pronouns are suitable, and the time (past/present) too.
• Avoid starting the sentence with the exact words. Example, "Ich bin am Wochenende nach Heidelberg gefahren. Ich habe Spass."
• Write as many texts as possible and ask someone to actually correct and score it. Could be a friend, a senior, or a teacher. Without any feedback, for me, it's kind of hard to keep on the track as we keep going without knowing our mistakes. We learn from trials and failures, you know.

Writing the other Exam

Well, I’m not going to explain in detail because it clearly depends on whether which course you are going to take. Let me give you some examples from the Physics part of the M Kurs ANP Uni Halle.

Challenge: sometimes the number of materials are too much to comprehend, like Biology for example. Too many memorizations. 😤

Hint: the questions that came out aren’t actually in-depth questions and I'd rather say it's not really hard -- only the basic knowledge about certain subjects.

Tips:

• STAY CALM, don't call 911 and panic.
• Ask the seniors that have been accepted in the Studienkolleg you are applying to, their past experiences and ANP questions might be a huge help.
• Use your time wisely. I know you want to learn 'em all, but you should also prioritize which ones are worth more of your time. Other than studying everything to answer the questions, make your study portion is foremost based on the questions that came in the exam.
• Borrow books from the library or even from Amazon Kindle (the E-book version).
• If you guys came from Indo, the materials are actually not far from that. I think SBMPTN questions are way harder. You might want to revise your highschool materials, but not all are relevant. Smh Indo questions are much more complicated. Learn from Youtube with the keyword '(the subject) Abitur' (FYI, Abitur is the Indo National Examination (UN) version in Germany)
• Watch educational Youtube videos and look for resources on the Internet.
  My forever fave channel since pre-Studienkolleg days till the last end-of-the-semester exam is The Simpleclub!!! They have different channels for different subjects, for example, Biology and History. They are like the free German version of Ruangguru or even Crash Course. On the other side, my fave web of Physics materials is Leifi Physik.

Pheew.
That was a very long write. Payback for having 2 weeks not writing anything, sorry guys haha. Been quite busy with a couple of stuff currently. Keep on going, once you are preparing for ANP... It's not easy I know. But many survived, and you will too! Quitting is not an option, the only way is to go through. HAJAR! 💪💥

Well, I guess we'll meet again shortly for the second part of this post! Until then, stay healthy and energized. 😄

Love and light,
Sintya✌