Hi Beth
I haven’t been onto the website in a while so apologise for not responding earlier. I did the exam in September and yes, the aircraft noise was a terrible distraction!! The same thing happened the last time I wrote! Never mind, I also passed with a ‘muito bom’ so was very happy!
Congratulations on your result!!
Practice Portuguese was a great resource and I recommend them 100%.
Best Regards
Daryn
I feel so out of the loop for not understanding or realizing what the CIPLE exam was/is. It’s kind of something I’ve been looking for! I never completed my minor in Portuguese when I got my B.A. in college (it has admittedly always been one of my hang ups 
). I feel like this is a wonderful way to fill that void, so to speak, and secure some acknowledgement for professional purposes/ambitions. Thank you all for your wonderful insight!
Olá. This is my first post and I just joined today. I realised Duolingo (much as I like it; Pittsburgh represent!) was not working out for me. I have wandered around Practice Portuguese admiring the incredible resources here. Strong work!
Eventually I do need to pass the CIPLE at A2. I see lists of topics online (e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305280822_Introducao_ao_Exame_de_Portugues_como_Lingua_Estrangeira/link/5786921708aec5c2e4e2f208/download and other sources already posted in this thread) as well as the format, which is helpful.
I see prior discussion around conversations and other difficult-to-add new services. Muito bom. I look forward to seeing where that goes. Yet without that level of work, I think Practice Portuguese could help with structure and study strategies for test takers.
For example, with four sections, there is agreement that the conversation is the hardest part (25% of score) followed by the oral comprehension (30%). As a guess, I bet this community could collectively develop some rough metrics along the lines of “if you score 80% on the written, expect that to drop to 50% on oral comprehension, and 30% on conversation.” Considering the sample exam out in the wild, perhaps another rough set of guides could be developed of, “if you reliably understand the following specific seven shorties, you have a good shot at doing well on the oral comprehension,” etc.
Having some – admittedly rough! – idea of how ready we are to take the test would be helpful. I see some nervous/excited posts over the past years, with the phrase “panic attacks” cropping up. Maybe there are ways Practice Portuguese could help test takers have a more realistic guess of how they will do. In addition to reduction in deaths from heart attacks 
when testing eventually resumes here post-covid, traveling to the nearest location to me means I have to take a day off of work. I am fortunate to not need a flight somewhere. Tests are given only a few times a year. For me, it will be better to prepare until I have a much better than 50/50 chance of success, or it is not worth the time, money, and trouble for the exam. Having a rough idea of my chances would be quite helpful.
Another set of ideas: I have no idea how long each day I should reasonably allocate to prepare. I could imagine some sort of pre-test of where I am now, and then based on my guess that I can devote n hours per week, I would appreciate guidance that I should figure on being ready for the exam in about m months from now. Or counterwise, based on a test date, an estimate of how many lessons / week, and therefore roughly how many hours / week, likely looks like to prevail.
Layered on top of that, how about a schedule or map? I can see already that some of the shorties are spot-on for the sorts of topics the test covers. Yet likely there are entire verb tenses that will not be tested, so toss them out of the band. A shorter list of resources on the way to passing the exam, plus rough ideas of dates for them, and nice dopamine-boosting green checkmarks as we get there, would be lovely. I imagine a serpentine layout ala the game Chutes and Ladders, since taking time off always regresses my skills! These would just be links to existing material, packaged up.
And then, too, a community aspect around the exam would be lovely. If there were five of us all shooting for exams in the same month, being able to opt-in to share one’s progress and encourage one’s fellow-travellers would be a nice little boost. Leaderboards and gamification are obvious, but I expect they only work well with a large number of people. From my short sojourn here, I have the sense of a caring community rather than cut-throat competition.
A friend works in Brussels. He gets a raise every time he passes language exams. I do not know which exams, which level, etc. but that might be a nice market too.
Obrigada!
Olá, @alirezamgt, welcome. I moved your topic to this topic about the CIPLE exam, where members have been sharing lots of tips and experiences that might be useful for you. Just scroll up to see earlier posts By the way, the shorties/podcasts at Practice Portuguese are now categorized by CEFR levels, which should also be very useful to l of you. Here’s a FAQ on that: FAQ - Is There a Placement Test?
Olá! I too am looking for a native language partner who speaks Portuguese from the Azores. Would you be willing to share the connection? They’ve been so hard to find.
Hello all,
I have a quick question for those who have taken any of the CAPLE exams in the United States. I will (hopefully) be taking my exam in Boston in May, I have problems hearing certain tones and notice I hear better when wearing headphones. For the oral comprehension portion of the exam, is the audio played over speakers to everyone in the room or is each person listening while wearing headphones?
Thank you in advance.
Bem vindo, @dbanner73! Welcome!
When I took the CIPLE in Washington, DC, the oral comprehension audio was played out loud to all two of us test takers. 
There were no headphones. Perhaps you can tell the test giver of this issue before the test, and maybe they can seat you accordingly. Good luck!
Yes. A little over 10 days ago in Boston. I will get my results in a couple months.
Best of luck! I am taking the exam in July and trying to find past exams for practice - only found the one on the letras website. Do you remember what the topics in the written section were? Would be very helpful for practice!
Thanks
@dbanner73
I never normally write on forums, but I hope I can help those of you who are worried about the CIPLE exam, as its now becoming quite important. I am Scottish / Canadian and live here in the beautiful, if not isolated Azores Islands (the dialect on some islands here is impenetrable) with my partner who is Azorian and my young son who is at school here, so the 'Azorian" version of the Portuguese language is always present for me.
Okay, I have had an online tutor from Lisbon for the past four months, and signed up to Practice Portuguese which was a ‘very useful’ tool to help at widening and increasing my vocabulary and understanding of structures. So I decided to book two CIPLE exams (results later) about a month apart in different locations on the mainland, but was really worried. I bought the CAPLE handbook with the samples, but to be honest on reflection the actual exams were much worse and more difficult than the samples in the book. The experience at the first exam location in May was interesting, staff were friendly but the whole experience was disorganised and chaotic from start to finish, so be prepared in advance to understand the structure and take the joining instructions with you (address, building, floor number etc…) as some students were very late due to getting lost, and don’t forget the covid mask, face-visor, pen, pencil etc… as they had a zero tolerance policy for those that didn’t follow the instructions. The second exam location in June was quite different, very organised, helpful and the staff were super friendly and made everyone feel very welcome and comfortable. The exam is similar to the guidelines in the book but really much harder. The oral part was quite straightforward but handled differently at the two exams. In the first exam the students were put into groups of two, but as the oral started the examiner just said ‘talk to each other’, the student I was paired with suddenly froze, and I was thinking “talk about what?” but just started talking about myself in general, and then helped the other student by asking him about himself which got him to talk, I then took every opportunity just ‘to talk’ until they told us to stop and that was it. The second exam the oral was much more structured and split into three parts, describing about yourself, a question in relation to a subject, and discussion about a photo, the staff were very friendly and relaxed and described exactly what they wanted. The rest of the exam at both locations was the same structure, however the final part where you get voice recordings and a minute to choose the right answer from a multiple choice list was AWFUL!! in both exams, with everyone complaining they couldn’t hear or understand correctly, with noise from in the room, outside the room and on the recording itself. I felt the same. I was sure I had failed the first exam and it seemed more like a B2 or C1 exam, as I have taken other language exams at those grades.
So I waited 6 weeks and the result eventually came - it was a very stressful wait. I PASSED!! with Sufficient 1 point short of a Good but I was over the moon with the score. What I was surprised with was that I really messed up on the bit I thought I had done well on, which was the written aspect where you have to write an email and a message? although I am more interested in speaking than writing anyway, but for the exam you need to prove both. I think under the pressure I didn’t calmly think through what I was writing and thus scored badly. I am still awaiting the result of the second exam, again a 6-7 week wait, it will be interesting to compare.
So stay calm before and during the exam, make sure you time yourself against the questions you are answering, any difficult ones just move on and go back to complete later when you have the time. You need to follow the invigilators instructions when to use the Pen and when to use the Pencil, several people did not do this on my exams and thus could fail. Also not that I think anyone would dare cheat, but be aware that in any one of these exams they have two or three versions of the papers in the same exam room, that’s why you need to clip your exam paper with the results pages to ensure they match up at the end of the session.
So I hope this may give a bit of an insight, but I think Practice Portuguese really helps with pronunciation, with structure, verbs and vocabulary and helped give me the boost I needed to pass that exam. Thanks to the team at Practice Portuguese - I will continue onwards, and Good Luck to all of you taking CIPLE. Grandes abraços das lindas ilhas dos Açores.
Thanks @dg1
I am also preparing for CIPLE A2. Hoping to take exam in November. I live in Lisbon so i am bit familiar with words we use on daily basis. However need to learn more about verbs and grammer part in order to able to have smooth conversation and able to write well. Could you please tell me if for A2 level if I have to prepare for all tenses like present, past and future ?
From my experience its a good idea to have a really good understanding of the present, and a reasonable understanding of the main common verbs for the future and past, that way you will feel more comfortable with the oral part of the exam for A2. Confidence is the key, for the oral just be prepared to actually speak because that’s what they want. If you make mistakes don’t worry. The written part of the exam which I scored low on, I think was down to my poor grasp of the verbs from a written point of view. This is an exam that is a bit hit and miss from my experience. There were people who took the exam at the same time as me who I thought were very good in regards to their Portuguese and failed, and others who didn’t say much in Portuguese with the others present on the day, and they have reported back that they have passed? If you have lived in Portugal for a while and speak regularly, even if not well, then I think you should be okay in the oral. The listening in regards to the recordings / multiple choice answers is the really difficult bit, so Practice Portuguese is excellent for that if you use their recordings. Any other questions just ask, as I found there was little available to assist me to understand what to prepare for. Cheers!!
Thank you so much for your feedback. really appreciated.
I am trying to learn for the CIPLE exam and was wondering if there is anyone on the group that has done the exam and has any tips for me.
Is there a CIPLE exam study group?
Thank you
Sue
@susanleighcox I moved your post to this topic, where you’ll find lots of feedback from other members regarding the CIPLE exam
Hello everyone, just following on from my previous post. I have just received the results through from the second exam in Leiria in June and the result was much better than the first one a month earlier. I received a BOM and this time 2 points short of a Muito Bom. I managed to get 99 per cent for the oral part of the exam. Again the final part of the exam where you get the voice recordings and a minute to answer the questions is where I struggled yet again, so I would advise everyone to try and practice listening to various recordings and the Practice Portuguese recordings really assisted me. I have spoken with several others who participated in the same exam and they too had much lower marks for this element. I think the excellent way the exam was organised, structured, managed and the support given to those taking the exam at the Leiria site really helped. So good luck to everyone as I know how stressful it is going through this process, and to be honest I think my Doctorate was much less stressful. If anyone has any particular questions get back to me and I will try and help out.
I think A2 only covers present and the simple past preterite. one of my essays required the past tense. I also had to write an email with a recipe in it, and those tend to be either infinitive forms of the verb or the imperative. I do not think future tense, other than Eu vou trabalhar amanhã, type constructs are needed.
Has anyone used the “Exames de Português: Ciple, Deple, Diple” workbook ISBN: 978-989-752-462-2? I’ll probably take the test next year as soon as a date comes up and was wondering if anyone used this and found it worth while.