My C1 PLIDA Experience

Although much time has passed, I am going to share my C1 PLIDA experience. The memory is somewhat distorted but I would like to share it anyway.

I took the test in November of 2021 in Quebec City. I had failed the written part by a few points, so I re-took the written part in June of 2022 in Mexico City.

As a Canadian, the Dante Alighieri society in Canada does not offer the C1 test year round. So, in order to save time, I flew to Mexico City where the Dante Alighieri Society Headquarters for North and South America is located.

There are the following four sections for the test: listening, speaking, writing and reading.

The way the test was administered in Quebec City for the listening part was not the way the practice exams are structured. So I panicked a bit after checking with the test administrator. For the listening part, the practice exams have approximately a minute between the re-playing of the excerpt. At the test, they just played the recording twice, back to back, with no time in between. I had to guess for some of my answers because there was no time.

The speaking part was done as an interview with two test administrators. I am not sure if this is standard practice in other Dante Alighieri societies.

The writing part was where I was crunched for time. I finished exactly in time.

The reading part was easy for me. I felt I had plenty of time to read and answer the questions.

Since I had failed the writing part by 2-3 points, I realized that my Italian teacher from Salerno was not able to teach me how to write. He was very good for conversation and vocabulary. Although I had lessons with him weekly and a few months closer to the exam, I had two lessons a week, he could not really teach me how to write at the C1 level. I had submitted written work to him weekly, which he corrected, but he did not teach me how to write complex texts.

After the November exam, around the month of January 2022, I hired a new Italian teacher. He was older, from the North, an actual school teacher by profession, and a French-Italian translator.

So I re-started intensive studies in January of 2022. I had weekly lessons with the new teacher. He was very good. His approach was to fortify my weak points, whether they were related to grammar or vocabulary. Then he introduced complex texts for me to summarize. Then, he got me to a point where I could construct complex texts on a given topic. He also gave me many more tips.

Once June came around, I flew out to Mexico City. After the exam, I was going to spend a celebratory vacation with my brother, who had just graduated university. Hopefully, re-writing the writing part of the C1 would be my way to close the academic year.

The Dante Alighieri society in Mexico City is quite large. The administration of my test was chaotic. I don’t remember exactly, but there was an error for my exam scheduling. So when I arrived, I was told there was no room for me to write my exam. I explained that my brother was waiting for me and that I could not contact him separately. In the end, they were able to find a room for me to write my exam. They were concerned that the room was noisy since next door, there were oral exams being conducted. I told them that I had some ear plugs in my purse. We were able to make it work. It was easy for me to produce the two written texts.

About a month later, I got my results for the written C1 part. I had passed with a fairly good grade. Altogether, my average for the C1 was 76%.

PREPARATION

Preparing for the C1 was a massive undertaking. I have some excel spreadsheets that chart my progress. In general, I had many notebooks, art pencils, language learning textbooks, original novels and comic books in Italian, weekly lessons, Netflix films and youtube channels to refer to.

SOME TIPS

Listening - It is best to listen to Italian as it is spoken in Italy. Rai is a good start.

Speaking - I would speak weekly with my Italian teachers and Italian friends. I would also record monologues and give myself feedback.

Reading - Find materials that you can really get lost in. I loved reading Umberto Eco’s Il Nome Della Rosa

Writing - Find a good Italian teacher that works closely with texts. Although my first teacher was university-educated in Rome, his knowledge of texts was poor. He explained that the university system still relies on oral exams for evaluation, so writing is less-developed even at the university level.

If you need some more help with building a strategy for taking the C1 PLIDA, book a session with me.