Entrance exam

This morning was the entrance exam, but before this, the opening ceremony. Not much of a ceremony, really. Just a short series of speeches (most in Chinese), and a talk by a female police officer from the Public Security Bureau, the same who accepted my residence permit application on Monday. The whole affair was very similar to the opening ceremony last year at Guangxi Daxue, and equally boring.
After this formality, the oral part of the entrance exam took place at the 3rd floor of the same building, which will also be our teaching building. Each of the 300 or so new students present were given a short oral exam, one by one, in six classrooms simultaneously. The exam consisted of reading a paragraph (in Chinese of course), and then answering some questions, interview style. The teacher first asked me how long I had been studying Chinese, and then selected the appropriate paragraph for reading. I was given paragraph number 2, out of 14. The text was not too hard, although there were a few words I didn't know. My score was 70%/70%/80%, for the categories reading, comprehension, and speaking.
Then up a floor for the written part of the exam. This was much harder, and of the 60 multiple-choice questions, I only felt comfortable with the first 10 or so. I could not even finish it in the time given. It's amazing how much you can forget in a few months, although I have to admit I hardly studied since the end of my first semester in January.
I had lunch with some Thai students, all from Bangkok, but they met here. A nice bunch. There are quite a few Thai, and also a lot of Korean and Russian students. Other nationalities include American (less than expected), German, French, Japanese, Indonesian, and Dutch (more than expected), among others.
In the afternoon we had a campus tour, led by a very cute female teacher ("you can call me Ju Ju"). She is a master's student (like Li Yong Mei, my cutest teacher at Guangxi University), and speaks English very well (unlike Li Yong Mei).
Friday afternoon the test scores and class allocations will be posted in the lobby. I expect to be just one level above absolute beginner, which suits me fine.