If you want the Goethe-Institut German A2 exam clearly explained, you’re in the right place. In this post we’ll unpick the format of this important “upper beginner” German language exam. We’ll get clear on just what the A2 test German exam itself involves. That’ll help you decide whether it’s for you. You’ll get a better sense of what you need to achieve to pass this intermediate German exam as well.
What’s the level of the German A2 exam?
A2 is a level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a set of ability standards used by educators in German and many other languages. There are two CERFL “Basic” levels. I have written a separate post on the A1 “Breakthrough” level exam. Our focus below is on the A2 exam (upper beginners, obscurely nick-named “Waystage” level on the CERFL).
So, applying the CERFL, how good does your German have to be to pass Goethe A2? In short, you need to be able to:
- understand sentences and commonly used expressions associated with topics directly related to you direct circumstances (e.g. personal information or information about your family, shopping, work, immediate surroundings);
- make yourself understood in simple, routine situations dealing with a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and common topics;
- describe your background and education, immediate surroundings and other things associated with immediate needs in a simple way.
If you manage to pass the A2 test German, you have every reason to feel proud of your achievement.
Sure, what you can say and understand is still rather limited to expressing basic needs, communicating on the most common, everyday topics. You will still often only catch some of the main points of what’s being said even if it’s expressed in clear speech that isn’t that fast.
But pause to reflect for a moment. You’ll have covered many of the most frequent German grammatical patterns. You should be aiming for a vocabulary of about 1,300 words. With an active command of a lot of these words and patterns and a passive understanding of more of them, you can expect to be able to deal well with some important real-life situations when travelling.
Altogether, you have developed a wonderful skill that will help you connect with German-speaking people all over the world and will transform your experience in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.
Where can you take the Goethe-Institut German A2 exam?
Unlike the B1 and B2 exams, which consist of four modules that you can take in separate sittings (even at separate exam centres), the Goethe A2 exam is typically held at one Goethe-Institut on one day.
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The German A2 exam format section by section
The Goethe German A2 exam is split into four parts. These cover the four skills of listening, reading, reading and writing. There isn’t a separate grammar or vocab test (unlike, for example, in the Russian TRKI exams).
Let’s look at the format of each section in turn. I’ve used the Goethe Institute’s own “model paper” (“Modellsatz”)(2nd edition, 2021) as guidance here. Always check the most up-to-date format for yourself before the exam in case things change.
Reading Section (Lesen)
The total time is 30 minutes
The reading test is divided into four sections (Teil Eins bis Teil Vier). There’s only one correct answer for each.
Reading Part 1 (Teil Eins):
You get a text of about 180 words. In the model paper, this is a newspaper article: “Ich versuche immer wieder etwas Neues”. Of course, the text will be different in the exam.
You are then presented with five short, uncompleted statements about the content of the text and have to choose from options (a), (b) or (c) to complete the sentence. To stress: the sentences are not lifted directly from the text. You can’t just play “spot the same string of words”, so your understanding of the text is really tested.
Reading Part 2 (Teil Zwei):
The model paper presents you with an information board from a department store (the sort of thing you’ll often see by the stairs or the lifts telling you what’s on sale on which floor).
For each of the five questions, you have to choose which floor you need.
Just as with Reading Part 1, a range of different vocab’s going to be tested. You can’t just rely on the vocab in the extract. So, the illustrative example in the model paper is “Sie suchen ein Sofa”. The answer is “2. Stock”. The challenge is that there’s nothing about “Sofas” on the sign under 2. Stock. What it does say is on the 2. Stock is “Möbel für Wohnzimmer, Bad und Küche.” You’ll need to recognise at least “furniture for living room…” to be able to answer the question.
Reading Part 3 (Teil Drei)(10 minutes):
In the model paper, the text is an informal email about 250 words long. Like in the first two questions, there are five statements that you need to complete to test your understanding.
Reading Part 4 (Teil 4):
In the model paper there are seven short internet info pages (each about 30 to 40 words) from cafés / caterers. You have to match the internet page that’s the best fit with the five seekers, e.g. (q. 16): Sarah heiratet bald und möchte mit vielen Gästen in einem Lokal feiern”.
Listening Section (Hören)
The total time is 30 mins
The listening section of the A2 test in German exposes you to a range of different speakers (ages, accents) and to different registers of language. In the model exam, these are radio broadcasts, a message on telephone answering machine and a loudspeaker announcement.
The sample recordings to the model paper are perhaps clearer than real speech would often but but the pace seems to me to be generally to be realistic for slower end of normal speech .
The whole soundtrack for the model exam is on the Goethe website.
You’ll hear the instructions for each Teil as it begins. These are much slower than standard speech and are the same as the written instructions for each Teil that you’ll have on front of you on the exam paper.
Let’s look at the four sections in a detail!
Listening Part 1 (Teil Eins):
The recording lasts roughly seven and a half minutes, including audio instructions in German (the same as is written on the paper).
There are five questions.
Before each question, there’s a pause of roughly fifteen seconds for you to read the question (the questions are short).
There are three radio clips (one is a weather forecast), two answer machine voicemails.
For example, question three is “Wo findet das Treffen statt? There are three options: a) Am Bahnhof, (b) Im Büro and (c) Im Hotel Leopold. If you were just listening out for individual words and guessing, it would be easy to get this one wrong. The women leaving the message explains that today’s meeting won’t be taking place “im Büro” but “im Hotel Leopold am Bahnhofsplatz”. She explains that there was a mistake on the invitiation.
There’s another fifteen or twenty second gap at the end of question five.
Listening Part 2 (Teil Zwei):
In the model paper, Teil 2 is a conversation that you get to hear just once, a couple (man and woman, talking about how they’re going to spend their week’s holiday). There are eight pictures on the exam paper and you have to match the activities pictured to one or five days of the week (that’s to say, what’s happening on Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag and Samstag).
First you get about thirty seconds to look at the pictures, when you could think of some of the vocab that might be coming up to describe what you can see.
Then you hear the example question (there’s an nineth picture of people in a cinema, Monday’s activity).
There are eight pictures and you’ll only need five of them. You’re told that you shouldn’t choose a picture more than once.
You hear the whole conversation without pauses. It’s about one minute long.
Listen carefully as you could easily be led astray. For example, picture (a) is of people dancing and the women says that they’ve got their dancing class on Tuesday. If you hear “Tanzkurs” you might think that (a) is the answer, but the man replies that the teacher is away this week too, so there’s no class. For Wednesday, the man suggests a trip to the swimming baths (picture (c)) but the woman says she would prefer to go cycling (picture (g)), which is what they agree.
At the end of Teil 2, there’s another short pause (about fifteen seconds).
Listening Part 3 (Teil Drei):
You hear five short conversations (man and woman) just one.
Before each conversation there’s a fifteen or so second pause for you to read the question and look at three pictures. The first, question, for example is “Was hat das Mädchen gestern Abend gegessen?” There are three pictures: plate of fish, hamburger, plate of chicken. She mentions all three but says she chose the chicken.
There’s another pause of about fifteen seconds at the end of Teil Drei.
Listening Part 4 (Teil Vier):
The recording is a radio inerview between the male host and female guest.
There are five questions about what you’ve heard and you have to choose “ja” or “nein”.
First you get a little under thirty seconds to read all five questions.
Then you hear the interview twice. It’s about a minute long and it’s played the second time with only a very short pause, so I think it would make sense to answer the questions as you go (and double check, deal with any gaps on the second hearing).
There’s another short gap and then you’re asked to copy your answers for all four Teile on the answer sheet.
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Writing Section (Schreiben)
The total time for the Writing Section is 30 minutes and you can allocate the time as you wish between the two tasks. All the instructions are (as throughout the whole exam) in German only. So, your reading will be tested quite a bit before you can start writing.
Writing Part One (Teil Eins):
You have to write a text message of 20 to 30 words. The scenario in the model paper is that you are underway in the town and message your friend. You have to excuse yourself that you’ll be arriving late, explain why and specify a new meeting place and time. You should cover all three points.
In the “real” exam the task would presumably be similar (whether or not in the form of a text?): three points to be covered, 20 to 30 words.
Writing Part Two (Teil Zwei):
You have to a write 30- to 40-word email. In the model paper the scenario is that your boss has invited you to his birthday party. You must reply, thanking and accepting, explaining that you’ll be bringing somebody with you and asking the way to the party.
Speaking Section (Sprechen)
The total time is fifteen minutes, during which you are examined with another candidate, your “Partner” or “Partnerin”.
Speaking Part One (Teil Eins):
This is a question and answer exchange between you and your Partner.
In the model paper, it says that you’ll be given four cards with the following prompts: “Geburtstag?”, “Wohnort?”, “Beruf”, “Hobby?” The task is to formulate questions on the basis of these prompts and your partner has to answer them. Then your partner will do the same. It seems from the model paper that you both get the same four prompts.
The challenge here, then, if you’re the “asker” is to turn the prompt into a brief question.
When it’s your turn to answer, I would imagine that a short phrase or two is going to be more impressive than a one word response (but don’t tie yourself up in knots).
Speaking Part Two (Teil Zwei):
Part Two is “Von sich erzählen” (sharing information about yourself). It’s a monologue and you both have to talk about a different personal topic.
Partner A gets the question “Was machen Sie mit Ihrem Geld?” There are four prompts, potential answers: Kleidung? Lebensmittel, Miete? Sparen? Reisen?
Partner B gets the question “Was mach Sie oft am Wochenend? Prompts: Sport,…? Jemanden besuchen? Mit wem? Wo?”.
Speaking Part Three (Teil Drei):
Speaking Part Three is a two-way discussion task is to agree on a time when you can both go and buy a birthday present for your mutual friend Patrick. You are both given a copy of your personal engagement diary for Saturday with various time slots blocked out for various activities, such as “Frühstück bei Mario”, “Eltern anrufen” or “Schwimmen”.
Though neither of you know it, there is only one slot between 7 am and 10 pm that you are both free and that’s 5 pm to 6pm.
So, you need to ask back and forth whether your Partner can do a particular time and they will need to explain what they’ll be busy with, until you hit on the time.
If one of you suggests 5pm right off the bat, the conversation could be quite short. On the other hand, it could take quite a while to hit on the time.
Pass marks and retakes
You take the whole Goethe A2 exam at one exam centre on one day.
You need to get at least 60% in each section to pass. If you fail any section and would like to retake the exam at a later date, you’d have to retake the full exam. You can retake the full exam any number of times.
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Want to know more?
If you’ve already approaching a A2 “exam ready” level, check out the model paper and other practice material for the Goethe-Institut German A2 exam on the Institut’s website. I’ve done my best to get things right above, but double-check yourself and remember, formats and requirements do sometimes change and that’s all the more true while COVID-19 is still with us.
Viel Erfolg in your preparation and in the exam!
Would you like to see more content on the topic here on the site? Let me know in the comments below!
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