Now that I've come down from the high that was passing the DELE C1 exam, I wanted to give my thoughts on the exam format, my performance, and how prospective test takers should approach the test.
The test is designed to test your skills across a variety of settings, both formal and informal. According to the Instituto Cervantes, passing the C1 level certifies that you are able to:
As such, the C1 level of this exam (and I can't speak for other levels) is divided into 4 sections, or pruebas. Each prueba contains 2-5 tasks, or tareas.
- Understand a wide variety of long, quite demanding texts, as well as recognize implicit meanings in them.
- Express themselves fluently and spontaneously, without any obvious effort to find the right words.
- Use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic, and professional purposes.
- And be able to produce clear, well-structured, detailed texts on topics having a certain level of complexity, with correct use of mechanisms for organizing and articulating a cohesive text.
Because I have quite a bit to say, I'm going to split this up into 4 posts, each dedicated to a single prueba.
Prueba 1: Reading comprehension and use of language.
Here, you have 90 minutes to answer 40 questions. As the DELE objectives mention, the texts are actually quite demanding (and boring, I'll add!). And, unlike in the B2 level, the questions associated with them are much more specific and detailed.
