Swiss Exams - Bern

Expatriée à la découverte

Yesterday I took a Goethe A2 exam in this exam center at Bern. Everything went smoothly and the staff was friendly. Honestly, I was scared due to the earlier comments about the audio quality for the "Hören" part. But this was the best hearing exam experience ever. We could hear clearly without any issues, the sound quality was excellent.

For the oral exam too, the examiners were pretty friendly and nice. Except for a little bit of natural anxiety, I felt comfortable.

I have a few recommendations for which I cut one star off.

1. The staff talks with you in German in a native speaker speed without slowing down and without a following English translation, during the "Anmeldung" and also for informing you about requirements. Yes, I know it is a German language exam. But they also knew our level was only A2 yet and maybe slowing down and articulating a bit more clearly can be a solution if English translation is not an option? That would be really helpful! ?

2. Exam dates are during the weekdays. I had my oral exam at around noon and then rest of the exam parts were between 14:30-16:00. Which means you have to come earlier than noon, then more than half of your week day is gone. Highly likely one full day is gone, if you come from outside of Bern like me. This isn’t convenient nor for students, neither for people who work. Which will probably be the case 90% of the people. Offering exams on Saturdays would be great - and ideally occupying either only one half of the day when possible.

3. You are not allowed to bring with you any tech items except for phone because they do not have lockers. It would help us so much if they could set up lockers.

Nadine Nussbaumer

Das positive zuerst: es gab keine technischen Probleme und das Gebäude ist in der Nähe des Bahnhofs . Jedoch: Nicht zufrieden mit dem Preis leistungs Verhältnis. Warum: In der Nähe gibt es keinen Kiosk oder ähnliches weshalb man in den Pausen nichts kaufen kann (meines Wissens steht davon nichts in den zugesendeten Unterlagen dass man gewisse Dinge hätte mitnehmen können). Um zum nächsten Coop zu gelangen ist keine Zeit. Die Zeiten variieren von dem was angegeben ist beim Entry Statement. Es gibt keine Möglichkeiten seine persönlichen Gegenstände einzuschliessen obwohl man seine Tasche nicht in den Prüfungsraum nehmen darf, das Handy die ganze Zeit ausgeschaltet sein muss und auch nicht in den Pausen benuzt werden darf. Das Personal wirkt gestresst was sich nicht positiv auf das ohnehin schon nervöse Gemüt der geprüft werdenden auswirkt.

Bun Solo

Not happy at all with the service provided, especially for that horrendous price. The exam dates and times they offer are not well suited for people who work office hours or are still in school (and I thought these people were your target group). Taking the exam was a rather unpleasant experience as well. The staff was very unfriendly. The exam times were set so that you had very long breaks between the different parts of the exam, which was a total waste of time. I waited a month for my exam results, and I've been waiting even longer for my certificate. Just recently, I was told that there is a 1-month delay to the 2-months waiting time for the certificate due to holidays. No other company can afford to not do their job properly just because of holidays.

Melis Öner

Everything was well organised, we received the right amount of information until the exam day. However, the listening test was terrible because of an echo problem in the room. We talked about it to the person in charge on that day, but his reaction to our comment was that it was surprising since nobody had ever complained about this problem so far...

Grandjean Laura

Great organization however the listening exam was awful! I couldn't hear anything, the sound was resonating in the whole room. I'm normally good at the listening exercice and actually I lost most of my points with this part of the exam. It's a shame.

Marius Baumgartner

Nutzt das Marktmonopol mit teuren Prüfungen aus. Der Prüfungsabnehmer hat lediglich von einem Zettel abgelesen. Auch dass die Zertifikate nach 5 Jahren ablaufen ist eine Frechheit.

Daniel Rhyner

The quality of the sound system provided for the listening exam was poor and many participants confirmed my impression

Ta Ra

Alles in Ordnung. Ausser das Listening - dies war akustisch sehr schlecht verständlich.