180 Lit Passed!

It's happened! I received the good news last night, so it's time to make the official announcement!

180 Lit passed passed on 6/22/2015 with 13 errors (98.6%)!

I'll tell you what, I was in quite a negative spot before this happened, with the previous weeks and months having me convinced that I'd simply never pass a 180 Lit test (at 98%, no less) so long as I was at this school. Nearly all Lit tests were of the congressional record variety, meaning never-before-heards words in hard-to-understand sentences. THIS! THIS was what I needed!
A good old-fashioned, straightforward story about a druggie hospital worker who was stealing medications!!! Scandalous!

As soon as the test wrapped up, I sat back in my chair and knew -- just KNEW that I had passed it! I'll tell you what helped me get to this point, though. It was "slowing down to speed up." At the start of the semester I was just focusing on QUANTITY of high-speed dictation, rather than QUALITY! So I started slowing down the dictation material just to make sure I got it all and improved my accuracy like never before!

I don't want to keep flippantly saying, "Oh, I'm a messy writer." No more!

The timing of the test was also the very same day I got my RPR JC pass results, so it was two amazingly good things in one day! I just enjoyed the traditional celebratory sushi dinner last night, and the good news also comes at a perfect time because...

I'm going on vacation for the next three weeks! You heard right! My first lengthy vacation from school since I started the program. It's a back-to-back family reunion in Barcelona followed by a solid week in France!

Part of me does still think that I'll only realistically qualify for the CSR by passing the RPR, and with one down and a 180 Lit already passed, I'm going to jump at the opportunity to do it once it goes online. Hopefully before the summer is out!

Well, that's all for now. It may be quiet on the frontier for a while, but just know that I'm still chugging away and have only those bastard 180 4-Vs to test before I'm in qualifiers.
Which will come first? Qualifying through school? Or qualifying through RPR?

We'll see!

RPR Jury Charge Passed!

Wow!

Long time, no write!
A LOT has happened, trust me, but as usual, I felt it only necessary to update when it had to do with a test pass.

Well, this is pretty little number actually started back on May 2nd, with the second RPR on-site test that I took on campus. For those of you who may not know, the RPR is the beginner-level national standard for court reporters, consisting of three legs -- 180 Lit, 200 JC, and 225 QA.

Going into it, I had my heart set on passing the 200 JC. After all, I'd already passed it at school, so I felt pretty solid. Getting the 180 Lit would've been nice, but I didn't even bet on that 225 QA.

ALL of the tests were great, though I really chalk up my failing the 180 Lit because of NERVES! Nerves, nerves, nerves... So silly! Were it not for that, I know that I would've passed it. The content was very familiar to me, and it was read just splendidly! The same goes for the 225 QA. It was like QA 101 in terms of content!

Anyhoo, I am so very happy to share that I passed the RPR 200 JC with 47/50 errors! Phew! Skin of my teeth! I even posted the good news on FB, which I don't usually do, and the responses by people were very uplifting! As I said in that post, I was skippin' and whooping around the house when I received the letter in the mail. To be honest, I first suspected that the letter might just be a reminder to renew my NCRA membership or something, but, nope!

I may write again soon, hopefully, with good news regarding a certain 180 Lit test from school~~ Mwahaha, we shall see.

Until then!