Hello Reader,

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.

How's that for a dramatic opening?

This week I had a resident come to my office to ask if she could talk with me. She was going through a hard time, and needed someone to listen.

I said a silent prayer as I welcomed her in and got her a chair.

I'll just ask her questions, and let her talk. That was my simple plan.

Well.

The conversation DID NOT go that way. At all!

It immediately went into the deep end.

No warming up.

No easy surface stuff first.

Nope.

We went deep. And we went fast!

Problems - big ones - with her family. Then we tumbled over to mental health and how her treatments were not working, and then that flew into how anxious she was over an upcoming surgery, and then - and I kid you not - a good 15 minute tour through her cell phone photo gallery as she showed me some of her art work and sculptures.

The conversation was up, down, sideways, backwards and up then down and backwards all over again.

Any plans of me asking a few well placed questions and listening flew out the window seconds after she sat down and started to share what was going on.

Of course I listening intently and did my best to help, but it was hard to keep up!

Few plans that I know of survive the moment when you try to put them into practice. It's important to be ready for that!

Here's what it means for you:

Make your practice sessions for the CELPIP happen in the most imperfect settings! (Because you can be sure they'll happen!)

• Noisy is a must! Stop practicing in 100% quiet spaces because I promise you this: your CELPIP test centre will not be 100% silent. You'll hear other people talking and typing. To get used to this, practice speaking, reading and writing skills in places with lots of noise!
• Smells bother you? Practice in them. I was reading in a Reddit post the other day of a test taker who didn't get the results they needed because they couldn't concentrate - wait for it: because of someone's perfume. According to that specific test centre, they have no scent free policy in place, so the perfume victim had no chance for a retest. Make sure you can perform 100% with or without smells!
• Practice under time pressure. If you are avoiding practice against the clock, my friend you are setting yourself up for failure. Clock anxiety is absolutely real, and it can take you down if you're not ready for it. But practicing is easy- and you can start any time you want! Just use your cellphone's voice memo app. Most have built in timers that tell you how long you've been speaking for.
• Talk to a machine. Trust me, if you haven't done this it feels weird. And weird can throw you off on test day if you're not ready! See previous point - practice using your cell phone so you can get used to talking NOT to a person.

Make your test preparations as battle ready as you can by throwing yourself into situations where you practice in difficult, noisy and smelly environments! You might just notice the difference in your score on test day!

***

Listen:

Here are a few podcast episodes that will help you deal with distractions on test day.

​How to beat clock anxiety on the CELPIP.​

​How do I overcome distractions on my CELPIP test day?​

📨 Now it's your turn! What is your biggest CELPIP distraction? Hit reply and let me know what has been your biggest distraction on test day! I promise to write you back.

Well, that's it for today! Thank you for reading! Have a great weekend!

Aaron