The only reason I mentioned fear was your phrase about being like a ‘deer in the headlights’, which I thought you were meaning you freeze due to fear, anxiety, etc. Personally, I don’t really think I fear sounding like a moron, but rather I do get a bit anxious, when I feel that the other person is expecting a response from me and I take a long time to formulate and say it. This assumption of the other person is waiting, hurry up, adds pressure and stress, but really it’s just me adding pressure to myself, because often the person is patient (especially if you are paying them).
@asad100101 To be truly comfortable with native speakers, you need a lot, I agree. From my experience with Italian, the exams should be easier to pass than fulfilling the qualitative criteria of the CEFR levels. Personally I passed a comprehension B2 exam I found online with the following stats:
Sure, the exam wasn’t an official, formal exam, but with the OP’s stats of 550 hours of listening, etc., if you are experienced in taking exams and get a B2 exam, which doesn’t test grammar theory, I wouldn’t be surprised if you passed (edit: the comprehension sections). If you didn’t pass a A2 exam with these Spanish stats, I would be surprised and probably put it down to a silly exam, as A2 comprehension is quite low.
The OP is studying Spanish, but for German, the Goethe Institute says you only need a vocabulary of ~1,300 head words for A2.
Der dem Goethe-Zertifikat A2 zugrunde liegende Wortschatz umfasst circa 1300 lexikalische Einheiten, die Deutschlernende auf der Niveaustufe A2 kennen sollten.
To pass these lower CEFR levels, you don’t actually require a high level in the language. Even B1 and B2 are also not super high, both in terms of comprehension (B2 is decent, but not high) and competence.