Sharing is Caring: My MUET Speaking Experience

After many months of speaking practices and anxious awaiting, the day had arrived.

We were going to take our speaking test on the 4th of April, 2011.

All through the months before today, my lovely MUET teacher had drilled us with various speaking exercises. Often we sat in our discussion group of fours discussing past-year and model questions, but we also enjoyed the frequent spin of public speaking, debating (this one was a favourite in class) and sometimes just plain old sharing of certain experiences. All these helped us as a class to brush up on our English language and speaking skills.

I woke up early in the morning to prepare for school, because I got the early morning session that started at 7.30 a.m, and due to alphabetical arrangements I was assigned in the very first group. (Yup, do you feel my nervousness now?) My mom knew better, as she prepared my favourite breakfast, Indonesian instant noodles (I like Mi Sedap Sambal Goreng with the crispy fried onions…okay I’m getting carried away now, let’s stop talking about food). After that, I left for school with my dad. In the car, I prayed for myself, my group and also the other friends, and that God grant me the courage to do my best and encourage my teammates.

Reaching school, we first gathered in a quarantine room, where we presented our exam slips and ICs to the teacher in charge for checking and filled in some forms. After that, we sat in the room chit-chatting and practicing with each other. Around 7.35am, the two examiners assigned our school came in the room for a short briefing session. Then, the first group was summoned *cue for suspense music* to the exam hall. After well-wishes from the other classmates, my group and I left for the exam hall.

In the exam hall, there are 6 tables arranged in a round-table discussion manner, where the 2 examiners would sit on both sides and the other 4 were indicated places for each candidate to sit. There was the individual exam question, a paper and a pencil pre-prepared for each candidate.

The examiners went through exam protocol, and the exam began, first with the 2 minute individual task and then followed by the 10-minute group discussion. I’ll be clean here and not mention the actual question that was given until mid-year MUET is officially over, because the questions given is the same for every group. (I’ll update this post then.) After the whole thing was over, we were asked to throw away the paper we used to jot down points during the exam, and then the four of us (not-so) quietly left school for our respective homes, while some opted to wait for their friends first.

How did I think of my performance? Well, I didn’t manage to completely finish my individual task within the 2 minute limit, but I did manage to elaborate on all my 3 points. My teammates did quite well too, with two of them showing remarkable improvement. As for the group discussion, our discussion went on relatively structured, as we each took turns and everyone had a chance to speak. Again, I’m personally very proud of my teammates, because they were such good sports and contributed well to the discussion, even though 2 of them (the same two that I mentioned earlier) were not native English speakers themselves. Kudos to them. Well, I’m thinking pretty positive now, but the real outcome would be only be made known much later. If only I knew the examiners’ individual comments on our performance…then can help me improve in my speaking skills.

The imp that I had since the first speaking practice that I had – the lack of eye contact – I am confident that I did maintain eye contact with everyone during the discussion. Thank God!

Well folks, that’s all there is for my experience. I’ll share on the other 3 tests after I’d taken them on the 16th of April. To all sixers, all the best for the 16th and to the rest, I hope that this post can give you a feel of how it’s like to sit for MUET speaking :)

Update (16/4)


The MUET speaking question that we got was this: (This is my abbreviation of the actual question)

In your opinion, which of the following parties are essential for Malaysia to produce more world-class sportsmen and sportswomen?
Candidate A: Parents
Candidate B: Schools
Candidate C: The public
Candidate D: Ministry of Youth and Sports

As for the Writing questions:

• Question 1 (report) was on the profile of professionals aged 18-27 and 46-55 years old at the workplace (position, income, work experience, marital status), as well as their main goals for the year ahead (where 7 goals were compared across both age groups and we needed to compare the rankings). We were required to link the two visuals (in this case both tables) in the report.
• Question 2 (essay) was something like this: "Friendship is the most valuable thing in one's life. Do you agree?"