As I previously mentioned, I took my Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) first week of March. I now have to wait for 3 months to find out how I did. If anyone wants to take the FSOT, here is a list of recommendations on how to study for it:
- Read the weekly Economist magazine for a year or two (online link)
- Also read BBC news every day as time permits (online link)
- Read a US History book.
(My recommendation is A History of the American People by Paul Johnson (a Brit). Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States is also good but not so much for preparing for the FSOT) - Read the Congressional Quarterly Desk Reference on American Government. It's a FAQ.
- Read the Consitution (several times until you've memorized all the articles and their subsections, and the 27 amendments - note: this number may change by the time you read this, but not likely).
- Try to create and memorize lists of significant acts of Congress and Supreme Court cases.
- Learn world geography. Here is an interweb game that's useful for that (Scott, you asked for a time waster? You got it).
- The State Department website has a sample test you can download for $20. Highly recommended. The actual test is exactly the same (slightly different questions).
Furthermore, if you have any foreign language skills, you will be asked to list them on your application and then you will be asked to take a phone test to prove your skills. Since I had put down that I know a little bit of Mandarin, and since Mandarin is on State's list of Super Critically Needed Languages, I have been asked to take a Mandarin test in March. According to the website this means I had passed the FSOT, but I did not receive a formal results letter. Just an email saying I should test for Mandarin ASAP. My test is on April 3 so I have been spending the last week just refreshing my Mandarin skills. I have little confidence in passing this test, but it's optional so hopefuly it won't hurt too bad. Anyways, I wanted to also add a link to the Foreign Service Institute Foreign Language Courses page. They have the study guides and tapes all available online for free!
7 comments:
Any news? I believe the foreign language Institute conducts a telephonic test within 1 week of written exam..Written exams to the best of my understanding are out by around 10-12 weeks.
I took my test today.Let's see after a few weeks wait.
Trevor
New York
Congratulations on taking the first step, and good luck on passing. The scheduling for getting results is changing all the time now with the new format. I had to wait a week to get a call for the language test, then another 6 weeks to get my full results, and then yet another 6 weeks to find out if I passed the QEP. I took the test in early March and found out I passed the QEP in mid-June. The December test-takers found out everything at once about 10 weeks out...
The Time Frame for Language testing is still NOT Transparent..For some test takers they got the call 2+ weeks after end of their FSO test window, whuile for some it hppened much later..AFter reading many blogs and talking with some in great depth, the time period for the Super criticasl Language test is still very uncertain. The very DOS websites/other materials about the new FSOT examination , quote different versions as to when the Language Tests invitations are opened.
Guess, it's a matter of time to see a "Trend" when it comes to a timeline/Timetable for the Language testings.
The new process is still unstable in that every test window yields different time frames and procedural changes. That being said, I know that some people who took the FSOT in the July '08 window have been contacted for the SCNL test already. A colleague of mine from that window has already taken her language test.
I am not sure what this means and whether people from the same test window can get the notification for SCNL tests at different times. Please post a comment if you find out more specific information on this.
People should read this.
I want to take the FS exam since I'm nearing university graduation there are no jobs for journalists. However my family and I have debts because of my mentally ill father. Am I no longer a candidate for a position regardless of how I perform on the test (good writer and excellent test taker)?
My friend and I were recently discussing about how technology has become so integrated in our day to day lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that discussion we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as the price of memory decreases, the possibility of transferring our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I dream about almost every day.
(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://kwstar88.insanejournal.com/397.html]R4 SDHC[/url] DS ZKwa)
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