What did you think?

@Rachel- definitely easier than Locals. Mostly basic questions on each chapter and its themes, as well as the memory passages. :) There were a lot of cross-reference questions though, which are always tricky to study for Nats (considering there is no Sword Study.) A few questions were on Greek words, but not too many. It also had some context questions from the memory passages.

True, but I'll bet you were close. I'm just not near as smart as most of the people at Nats, so the tests always seem hard.

Aww, don't beat yourself up like that! :) It was only by the grace of God that I was well prepared for the written test this year. The only thing I could have known better was the context of the memory verses. Throughout the whole test I was like "Thank You, God, thank You!" :D It was in my Orals that I failed for the first time ever, missing three short passages at the end because I started over twice, as well as numerous other errors and prompts. I don't really think I was close to Semi-Finals. :\

That was just about exactly my situation. I botched up a few passages, and although I didn't make any startovers – so as to conserve time – I didn't get through all of my passages. I was really disappointed. But, it was all in God's hands. It only helps me to know better how to review my verses next year. =)

I thought it was good that the competition this year was based on the scores from Orals as well as Written. In previous years, I have done reasonably well on my Oral Test but did not do well enough on Written. This year, I studied extra hard for the written test, but unbeknownst to me, the difficulties of the tests were pretty much swapped! If my Oral round had gone better, I think I may have had a chance at Semis. :\ I'm looking forward to finding out for sure!

That is exactly how I feel. I, too, wonder what my overall score would look like if I got a near-perfect on orals. However, I suspect that since most people felt that the test was very easy, there will probably be a lot of similar scores.

My biggest problem on the test was that I had studied a lot of Greek words and not that many cross-references. So of course, the test was mostly cross-references and not many Greek words. Go figure.
But on my Orals I wouldn't be surprised at all if I got 300, or at least 290.

There were very few cross-references questions, I thought…. Just like last year. Hmm.

I noticed more CR questions this year than last year, but there was not an abundance. I have also noticed that the Junior test tends to have more CR than the Senior does, though - in my Junior years, I always noticed a bunch of cross-references, but in Seniors there have never been as many. It was nice because a lot of the cross-references I already knew from either my own memory verses, or quizzing Courtney on her memory verses. You had an even better advantage than I had on that point, Christian, because you had siblings in both other divisions. :)

Really? Seemed to me that over half the test was cross-reference. Junior, anyway.

Ah, okay. I was unaware that you were a Junior. I wouldn't know about their test. ;)

Yeah, with our test, almost all of the cross-references concerned memory passages, so I didn't have much problem with them at all.

That's somewhat true in the Juniors, as I noticed that 75% or so of the memory passages were cross-references. But on the test, they included the entire book of Colossians as a cross-reference. Some of the questions started, "According to the book of Colossians" and I thought, Hey, I thought we were studying Ephesians!

I know how you feel! I experienced that in 2011 with 2 Peter and Jude. That was the one thing that kept me out of Semis that year. It's always something, isn't it? :P But you know, there are specific parallels to Ephesians in at least two-thirds of the verses in Colossians. It's definitely an important cross-reference.

I gtg now - nice talking with you two!

I was anticipating the Colossians questions, precisely because of what happened in 2011. But I didn't study it like I should have. I read Colossians that morning, but that wasn't enough. =P

It went by me like a fastball…there was a lot of questions I was thinking, "I don't have a clue, but I'll take a stab at it anyway."

I thought it was good that the competition this year was based on the scores from Orals as well as Written. In previous years, I have done reasonably well on my Oral Test but did not do well enough on Written. This year, I studied extra hard for the written test, but unbeknownst to me, the difficulties of the tests were pretty much swapped! If my Oral round had gone better, I think I may have had a chance at Semis. :\ I'm looking forward to finding out for sure!

That was exactly my case as well! And having all those similar memory passages, especially ones from Genesis and Exodus really threw me off in Orals.

I was anticipating the Colossians questions, precisely because of what happened in 2011. But I didn't study it like I should have. I read Colossians that morning, but that wasn't enough. =P

Heh, that's pretty much what I did too ;)

Sounds like I had basically the same experience. Written I felt well prepared for and Orals totally got messed up. :P But it was my first year at Nats to ever get through all the verses so I was happy about that. Starting with that Exodus passage was just nasty though :P
But, I don't think I would have been in semis even if I had got a perfect score.