FSOT Friday: An Experiment

As I mentioned before, I'm currently preparing to take the Foreign Service Officer Test with my boyfriend in about six weeks. For those of you who don't know what the FSOT is, let me give you a general idea. The test is a person's ticket into the Foreign Service (the State Department); if you pass the written assessment, you go on to the oral assessment and from there, hopefully become a foreign service officer. The written test is quite a hurdle to jump, however. Considered to be one of the hardest tests a person can take, the FSOT measures personal experiences and skills (biographical), English expression and usage, and job knowledge. The job knowledge section is what trips most people up, and what will certainly trip me up. Job knowledge covers U.S. government, history, and culture; world history and geography; international affairs; economics; math; management/business; and psychology. Soooo, not much, huh? ;)

I'm experimenting with the idea of a themed post every Friday related to the FSOT. You know, ways that I'm approaching studying, anything I've come across that could be helpful, current events briefings from places like the Economist or Foreign Affairs, iPhone apps, you know, the like.

Today, I'll focus on what I studied yesterday: geography.

It's no secret that America sucks at geography, but luckily, I've found a few tools to help me out. I only did European and South American geography yesterday, so I still have a few continents to master. The Latin America tests were somewhat of a throw-away, since I'm already pretty proficient there. But hey, my teachers never made me learn where Suriname or Guyana are, so those were new for me. And of course, it's not like the FSOT shows you a map and asks you to name the countries, but having a general idea of where countries are located in relation to each other definitely helps. Here's what I've done to prep so far...I'll use Europe as my example.

Printed out blank maps of the continent

Wrote in country and capital names 
(try squeezing Bosnia and Herzegovina in that itty bitty space)

Tried to find something interesting/memorable about countries
For example, Macedonia is this tiny little landlocked country not far from Greece. It's the only small landlocked country in the area.

Test myself on my knowledge using apps/websites
I haven't found a perfect site yet, but I used Funbrain levels 1 and 3 to test my knowledge of country location and capitals. Funbrain doesn't have a very good randomization process; out of the 10 questions in Level 3, 3 of them asked me what country's capital is Brussels. So that's something to keep in mind.

I also used an iPhone app for geography; it's called TapQuiz Maps and is decent for quick reviewing of countries. The app names a country and you must tap its location. Pretty straightforward. However, for very small countries, it's a little trickier and takes more time; you have to zoom in by holding your finger at the spot, and then lining up the little "x" with the country. It might work better on an iPad.

Keep in mind that this approach does not cover topography, like the mountain ranges and rivers that are likely important to know. I'm thinking about drawing those in but...we're gonna need a bigger map.

Yeah. It's kinda like that. (via)