I know there’s a huge thread on the CIPLE (A2) exam, but I was wondering if anyone has taken the DEPLE (B1) exam?
I’m planning to take it in May in Mozambique. I’m certain I can pass the reading and listening portion, but very nervous about the writing and speaking.
Anyone that has taken the exam - tips and insights are more than welcome!
Fiz o exame B2 há algum tempo. Para mim, o mais difícil (como em todos estes exames) foi provavelmente o exercício de compreensão oral - em grande parte devido à acústica. Mas, tal como em qualquer exame, tudo o que podemos fazer é praticar as áreas em que nos sentimos fracos e fazer o maior número possível de exames históricos e simulados. Porque, estar confortável e confiante ajuda sempre muito.
E, se estás a fazer o B2 e a fazer perguntas a pessoas que já fizeram o B2, provavelmente deverias fazer as perguntas em português - não achas? Pelo menos, é uma oportunidade para praticar a escrita com que estás preocupado.
Obrigada pela resposta. Tens toda a razão. É melhor nós falarmos em Português. Porém, eu vou fazer o exame B1, não do nível B2. Acho que a parte escrita do exame B2 é muito mais difícil do que a parte do B1, devido à necessidade de ser capaz de escrever cartas / emails mais formais (tipo reclamações e cartas de candidatura de emprego).
Imagino que a parte de compreensão oral foi muito difícil! Parece que os institutos de língua sempre usam aparelhagens antiquíssimas com o pior som possível
Não posso dar nenhum conselho sobre o exame B1, porque nunca o fiz. Só A2, B2, e um C1 com o Camões. Gostava de tentar o CAPLE C1, mas não sei quando vou ter tempo - temos muitas viagens planeadas.
Não acho que as letras do B2 sejam difíceis. Todas têm uma estrutura semelhante e há muitos exemplos para praticar. Para mim, contar as palavras, frase a frase, ajudou muito a manter-me dentro do limite. E manter as coisas simples, claro.
Na produção oral, não há muita preparação que possas fazer, porque não conheces o assunto. O outro candidato e eu ficámos sem coisas para dizer sobre o tema em si, mas desviámos o assunto e mantivemos a conversa, que é o que penso que a examinadora desejou - porque obtive as minhas melhores notas nessa secção.
Penso que a maior diferença entre os níveis é a subtileza. No A2, por exemplo, basta reconhecer algumas palavras-chave para escolher a resposta certa, mas ao subir de nível é necessário compreender muito melhor o que está a ser dito/escrito.
Não sei se isso ajuda. Quanto tempo falta para o exame?
Um abraço (desde um ónibus na Sri Lanka)
Barry
PS Parece que, por engano, enviei esta resposta ao Joseph, por isso, se esta vez a receberes, avisa-me. BB
If by chance you still check this, how did the B1 exam go? I am planning to take it but cannot find many B1-specific experiences, and I feel like I’m in the same position you were (confident about reading and listening, less so about writing and speaking).
My exam went fantastic, actually. I passed with an overall grade of “Muito bom”. I scored 95 on written comprehension (reading), 92 on oral comprehension (listening), 78 on written production (writing) and 80 on oral production (speaking). So I guess my self-assessment prior to the exam was quite on point, haha!
However, when I was actually taking the exam, I had extreme difficulty with the listening and was basically convinced I had failed that part. I’ll walk you through all the parts (as far as I can remember):
Reading: We started with reading. This was very doable. It was three or four different texts. One part was connecting the profiles of aspiring students to the most fitting university program, the rest were normal texts with questions. Now, reading is my strong suit, so I wasn’t all too worried, but I have to say that the texts and questions were a little harder or trickier than I had initially expected. You really have to read carefully and use the context well, as they sometimes use quite advanced vocabulary.
Writing - Next up was writing, in which you had to write two texts: one shorter one (50-70 words) and one longer one (around 110-130 words if I’m not mistaken). I had to write a flyer / poster to advise my neighbors about recycling. From the instructions, it was pretty clear you had to use the imperative (or perhaps even the conjuntivo, but I opted for the imperative). I also mixed in some infinitivo impessoal (like “É melhor vocês separarem o lixo”). Second assignment was to write a letter to your friends describing how the first months of living abroad have treated you. If I remember correctly they gave some general pointers (like talk about your work, the language barrier, etc.). We were given scrap paper, so I first wrote everything on there and revised it, before copying it to the exam paper. We were allowed to take the scrap paper home, so I took it and let my Portuguese husband correct it roughly afterwards, which gave me great peace of mind. I do think they grade it quite harshly, because based on his (lack of) comments I expected something above 80%, but okay. One more thing: the exam paper gave the TINIEST text boxes for you to write your texts in. So I just chose to ignore it once I reached the end and continue underneath.
The listening part: Oh boy, this was horrible. Fortunately, we were in a VERY nice and quiet room, with a high quality speaker. I deliberately took a spot close to the sound system, as I don’t always hear too well. If you’ve done the practice test on the CAPLE website, you’ll know the general structure, which is always the same so no surprises there. However, while at home I was quite capable of reading the questions and answers in time (1 minute generally), the general exam-stress made it a lot harder on the actual exam. I struggled quite a bit and even skipped some questions to return to them all the way at the end when you get 5 minutes to finalize your responses and hope for the best based on memory and logic - which apparently worked well. My tactic had been to - during the 1 minute reading time - underline the most important words in an answer, so that I could quickly judge which one it is. This worked well for some questions, but less so for others, as they sometimes phrase it and use words in such a way that it throws you off, like deliberately use the “right” words but in the wrong contexts. From the reaction of my peers, I could see that they were all struggling with this part.
Speaking: Last for me was speaking, which was done in pairs. I was part of the first pair (lucky me), so could go straight to the room after the oral exam. Honestly, this was one of the easiest and most relaxing parts of the whole exam to me (which is also what the examiners said to the group, haha). You will be filmed while doing this, so don’t get thrown off by the camera (it’s just so that they can take a random sample to ensure examiners have graded properly). The first part was introducing yourself based on interview-type questions (so the examiner would ask each person individually a more or less general question, like “where do you live in the city”, “what do you like most about living there”, “how long have you been speaking Portuguese for and how’s it been going”). These questions won’t be as simple as stating your name and age, but require a bit more talking about your opinions and experiences. The second part was describing a picture in about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I got a very boring picture which didn’t have a lot going on. After describing the factual information, I specifically focused on how I thought the people in the picture were feeling, what they might be thinking, what I thought about it myself, etc. I was done after about 2 minutes I think and just indicated that I had nothing more to say, which seemed to be fine. The last part was a conversation between you and your peer, based on a piece of information that was provided. We got a leaflet of an AirBnb for rent in the countryside in Portugal somewhere, and we had to discuss whether or not we would be interested in going there. Unfortunately, my peer really didn’t have a B1 level yet (which I could tell during the other parts, in which he consistently called a bus a train and just spoke more Spanish/French than Portuguese), so it was quite hard for me to keep the conversation going and to understand what he was trying to say. I just tried to use my words to ask him to clarify or elaborate, and if I really couldn’t understand I would just state firmly “you know, I’d prefer to do xyz” or take the lead in the conversation. I feel that in this part, the examiners already kind of know what your level is, so I wouldn’t stress it too much if there’s a big gap in level. It’s more about conversational skills, so you being able to react (in whichever way) to what someone is saying (and asking for clarification is doing just that).
So that’s it! That was my DEPLE experience. One more thing though: when I went to pick up the certificate, I had to sign next to my name and could see all the other candidates’ results. Unfortunately, out of the 9 people that were there, 7 (!) failed… I was quite shocked, but I think it’s because many of the people there signed up for a level that was just way above their actual level. For them I’m sure it was great practice though, so it’s never a waste in my opinion!
