My wife is from Ecuador, and after 15 years of her trying to teach me Spanish... soy horrible. Puedo ler mucho mejor de lo que escucho, y hablar? Impossible. For the record, I had to double-check with Google to type that sentence, as I forgot the "lo". Now that we've shown why I scored a 46 the last time I took this test, let's talk about how you can do much better. The study guide and flashcards will be of limited use in judging your ability to pass this CLEP. By all means, go through them and shore up any weaknesses, but the real "test" is how you do on the practice test. After entirely too much backend work, I've got it to match the format of the actual exam. Just like the real exam, you'll only get to listen to the hearing portions once, so make sure you pay attention. This is especially important in Part 2 - Listening Dialogues & Narratives, as some speeches can be quite long, and you're then asked to remember certain details in the following questions. People have recommended you use your center-provided scratch paper to jot down notes as you listen. That's great advice, and you may want to practice it here, too. A word about dialects - People have said they've gotten some Castilian Spanish on their exams, while others have said things like "Vosotros" never appeared. To play it safe, I have mixed some Castilian Spanish into the tests. Likewise, you'll probably hear some dialect-specific words from Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Argentina. The takeaway is: don't freak out if you hear something you haven't come across. You should be able to understand it from context if you've got the rest of the sentence. Wishing you the best on this one! Buena suerte!