Great article! I’ve had similar experiences with language exams. It’s easy to get a false sense of confidence in your language ability if you do well, and can be a blow to your confidence if you do poorly.

I like the idea of taking exams as an accountability measure for studying the language.

But if someone has to take the test because they are seeking employment in that language, they should be sure that they are refining their spoken fluency and what ever other aspects of it that they’ll need for the work, not just drilling vocab and grammar.