Practising reading and listening for A2 — technique over vocabulary
3 min read
In Reading and Listening you produce no language — you have to find something in it. That is why technique pays more here than vocabulary: most of the marks lost in these parts are lost to method, not to level.
What the exam asks of you
| Part | Time | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | 65 minutes | short everyday texts — a notice, an email, a leaflet — with multiple-choice questions |
| Listening | 45 minutes | questions about short videos and audio; the sound plays once |
Both are taken on computer, and no dictionary is allowed for the A2 parts.
Reading: hunt for the answer, don't read the text
65 minutes is generous. So the trap is not the clock — it is getting stuck on one word you don't know.
- Read the question first. Then you know what you are hunting for.
- Search specifically for the sentence or paragraph it is about.
- Accept the rest. The answer often sits in a sentence containing three unknown words. Full comprehension earns you nothing.
- Don't sit there. If you don't know, choose and move on. You can come back; you cannot get time back.
Listening: the audio plays once
This is the biggest difference from practising at home. The videos and listening texts start by themselves and are not repeated.
You do get a moment to read the question first — and that moment is worth the whole part. Anyone who reads the question only after the fragment is guessing.
- Read the question in that gap, even if you only half take it in.
- Listen for one thing, not for everything. You do not have to memorise the fragment.
- Let a missed item go. Still chewing on question 4 costs you question 5 — and that plays once too.
The mistake both parts share
At home people practise differently from how the exam works: flick back, look a word up, play the fragment again. That measures whether you know the language — while the exam measures whether you can do it in the time, in one go, without help.
So do at least one practice round under real conditions: a timer set to 65 and 45 minutes respectively, no dictionary, no translation app, and every audio fragment played exactly once.
What your practice should measure
| What happened | What it means |
|---|---|
| Time up, questions left | pace — not language |
| Missed the fragment | you didn't read the question first |
| Guessed after a long search | you read the text instead of the question |
| Mostly right, but exhausted | you read everything; you don't have to |
Almost none of these problems is solved by "learning more Dutch". That is exactly why one practice round is worth more than another vocabulary list.
What to do next
- Take a practice exam on this site — Reading, Listening and KNM
- Read how to use practice exams properly
- Also practise writing and speaking
Official source: inburgeren.nl — content of the language exams.