Olá a todos! I’m sharing part of a report on my recent CIPLE experience, which contains some ideas for how to prepare for the exam. The complete post can be found in my Substack about learning European Portuguese. Check it out if you’re interested: https://profcaloiro.substack.com/p/not-so-ciple-a-test-takers-tale?r=2iboav
Registering and preparing for the exam
Initially, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to register. There’s no email alert or announcement when registration opens, and when it does, spaces disappear quickly. You just have to keep checking back on the website of CAPLE (Centro de Avaliação de Português Língua Estrangeira ), the Portuguese language proficiency assessment system. I checked daily, two or three times a day, for several weeks starting at the end of December when I was told to begin looking. A few days into January, the option to take the test in Lisbon on April 12 and some other dates suddenly appeared, and so I registered immediately.
Once I was signed up, I started gathering test preparation material, including descriptions of the exam, advice from past CIPLE takers that I found in the Practice Portuguese user forums and other venues, exam preparation books, and all the sample CIPLE test forms I could get my hands on. I posted messages to the WhatsApp chat and the Practice Portuguese forums seeking practice partners for the speaking component. I also created a custom CIPLE Prep Coach in ChatGPT to help with various exam-related tasks.
A month before the test date, I stepped away from my speaking-practice groups and began devoting all of my daily language-practice time to CIPLE prep. I did a bit of speaking practice with my new contacts, but quickly realized it was the other parts of the exam that I was less prepared for, so I started concentrating on those.
For the reading component, I used the practice materials in the CAPLE exam preparation books produced by LIDEL, a well-known publisher of educational and technical resources. Once I’d finished with the two CIPLE sample tests in the lower-level book, I moved on to the materials for the higher-level tests, including those in the B2-level book. Given my experience studying Classical Latin and Spanish in high school and college, reading felt easy to me, but I still wanted to get used to the types of texts and questions I would find on the exam.
Writing was more of a challenge. I’d done very little writing for communicative purposes up to that point, except for short texts and WhatsApp messages. To be sure, I had a lot of experience typing in Portuguese, having done many app-based grammar and vocabulary exercises, and I could produce all the accent marks on both physical and virtual keyboards. But the CIPLE is written by hand, and the writing tasks involve drafting messages to friends or landlords or lost-and-found departments, which was new to me. I was also told it was very important to stay within the specified word limits.
To prepare, I had my AI coach generate a large number of prompts like those used in the shorter and longer tasks in the CIPLE writing section. I’d write out my answers in pen and photograph them for submitting to the chatbot, which then gave me feedback. This feedback included a transcription of my original answer so I could see if the GPT had been able to make sense of my handwriting; an evaluation according to categories such as task completion, clarity of communication, and appropriate language; suggestions for improvement; and a reformulated version of my original that incorporated the suggestions.
For listening, I applied the same strategy as with reading, using the listening materials from the exam prep books. When I’d finished the A2 practice, I moved on to the B1 and B2 material. At the higher levels, the recordings and questions obviously became more difficult, but I was still able to make sense of a fair amount of it and get at least some of the answers correct. I’ll say more below about how effective this ended up being (long story short: not very).
My final bit of preparation was to set aside two days right before the test for mock exams taken under timed conditions. I sat at a desk with a test form, answer sheet, pen, pencil, eraser, and a timer spread out in front of me, trying to simulate the actual test environment so I could develop a feel for the pacing and mental focus I’d need for the real thing. (One of those mock tests happened at an Airbnb in Lisbon the day before the exam.) They weren’t perfect simulations, of course, but they gave me confidence and a clearer sense of how I’d need to manage my time on the day.
Thanks for reading! The complete post from which this excerpt was taken can be found at: https://profcaloiro.substack.com/p/not-so-ciple-a-test-takers-tale?r=2iboav