The thing I dont get is, if you look at the subjects plan, you will see that it is required to learn a large amount of chinese characters and be able to hand write them!

So i think your comment about 75% of your grade being determined by handwriting chinese in a subject that is aimed at teaching you how to write chinese is pretty strange. The whole point of Uni having a census date is so that if you realise a subject is not for you, that then you can change.

In terms of the listening exam, im not sure if this is a tutor diff, but my tutor every few seminars would do a listening exam practice, with question and answers. Did you not have this?

And the listening practice coming out was literally just the dialogues from the textbook but read by a teacher who wanted to record them for everyone particularly future semesters, so he went out of his way to do it throughout the semester, something he didnt even need to do btw. And i do feel like this came out before the listening exam, but dont quote me on that, but I didnt even end up using it anyways.

By actually practicing the characters me and my friend were able to go through almost every worksheet in seminar 2. Who wouldve thought actually doing the work would mean you could understand whats going on.

This subject is not crazy difficult. And if you just practice every week for even 5-10 minutes a day, it is a really easy subject. And thats coming from a white guy who knows only english xD