German B1 Practice Test: How to Sit One and What to Practise Next

You can sit a complete German B1 exam at your kitchen table this week, with the real papers, the real audio and the real answer keys, without paying anyone. All three providers publish practice material for free. What almost nobody explains is what to do with the paper once you have marked it.

This guide covers the whole chain: where your exam’s practice test is, how to sit it so the result means something, how to mark it with the provider’s own published point rules, and what each weak section tells you to practise next.

If you have not chosen an exam yet, read the German B1 exam guide first. Practising in the wrong format wastes the effort.

Where the free official practice tests are

Each provider calls its material something different, so search results for these tests are full of copies on other sites. Use the source.

Goethe-Zertifikat B1

The Goethe-Institut’s exam training page for B1 offers two complete practice sets for adults, each with its own listening audio, and separate versions for young learners.

Take exam training 1 first and keep exam training 2 for later. The PDF is organised in two halves. The Kandidatenblätter, the candidate sheets, hold the tasks. The Prüferblätter, the examiner sheets, hold the answer sheets, the Lösungen or answer keys, the full listening transcripts, the grading criteria for writing and speaking, and the grading forms.

One part of that second half is easy to miss and worth more than the rest: the Leistungsbeispiele, two sample answers at B1 level for each writing task. They show you what a text at B1 level actually looks like, which is as close as you can get to judging your own letter honestly.

There is also an online version of the B1 training that you click through and that marks each answer right or wrong as you go. The Goethe-Institut offers it to candidates with specific needs, and anyone can use it. It is useful for a quick section, and less useful for a full timed run, because the clock is yours to keep. If you want to see the vocabulary the exam draws on, the Goethe B1 word list is published in the same place.

telc Deutsch B1

telc publishes one free Übungstest, a practice test, on its telc Deutsch B1 page. The download bundle is a ZIP file containing the complete test as a PDF and the listening audio as an MP3.

That PDF is unusually generous. Past the tasks and the answer key, the Informationen section prints the exact points and weighting table for every subtest, the full grading criteria for writing and speaking, and the pass marks. Most of the scoring detail further down this page comes from it.

Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer

The DTZ is the exam at the end of the integration course run by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, in German the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge or BAMF. Its page on the final exam points to the current practice material, which sits with g.a.s.t., the organisation that develops the test.

The g.a.s.t. page Der DTZ auf einen Blick publishes two free practice sets, Übungssatz 1 and Übungssatz 2, each with its audio file on the same page. The same page carries the official result bands, which is what makes honest self-marking possible for this exam.

The Goethe-Institut also hosts an interactive set of DTZ tasks for reading, listening, speaking and writing, with an immediate check after each one, plus another model set and the exam handbook to download. The g.a.s.t. material and the Goethe practice page are both in German. That is normal for DTZ material and not a problem, because the exam gives you no English either.

Sit it under the real conditions

A practice test that you pause, replay and look words up in tells you almost nothing. The point is to reproduce the pressure, so print the candidate sheets, put your phone in another room and keep the clock yourself. Or let the timed mock exam runner keep it for you, in the published order and with the break rule built in.

These are the published time limits.

	Goethe-Zertifikat B1	telc Deutsch B1	DTZ
Reading	65 min	90 min shared with Sprachbausteine	45 min, inside 75 min shared with writing
Listening	about 40 min	about 30 min	about 25 min
Writing	60 min for three texts	30 min	30 min
Speaking	about 15 min per pair, 15 min preparation	about 15 min per pair, 20 min preparation	about 16 min, no preparation time
Written total	about 165 min, with breaks of at least 15 min between modules	150 min, no break	100 min

Four rules make the difference between a practice test and a reading exercise.

Play each recording exactly as often as your exam plays it. In the Goethe listening module, parts 1 and 4 play twice while parts 2 and 3 play once. In telc, part 1 plays once and parts 2 and 3 play twice. In the DTZ, every listening text plays once. Set this up before you start and do not touch the controls.

Transfer your answers inside the time. Goethe gives you about five minutes within the reading time and about five within the listening time to copy your answers onto the answer sheet. The DTZ counts the transfer inside its 75-minute reading and writing block. Only the answer sheet is marked, so do the copying in the practice run too, at the same point.

Write on the answer sheet, not on paper you will tidy up later. Every provider grades only what is on the sheet. In telc and the DTZ, the writing task also requires a salutation and a closing, and it names four content points you have to cover.

Do the speaking part or admit that you skipped it. All three speaking exams are conversations with a partner. If you cannot find one, record yourself answering the same prompts under the same clock, and mark that section as untested rather than pretending it went well. In the DTZ this matters more than anywhere else, for a reason that becomes clear in the marking.

Mark it with the provider’s own rules

The answer key gives you the reading and listening result exactly. The rest needs the published criteria, and each provider counts differently. Do not carry a rule from one exam to another.

Goethe: 60 points in each module, counted separately

Reading has 30 items and listening has 30 items, each worth one point. The Goethe rules for administering the B1 exam, in force since 1 September 2025, convert those into a score out of 100 by multiplying the number of correct items by 3.33 and rounding. The published table gives 30 correct as 100 points, 20 as 67, 19 as 63 and 18 as 60.

Sixty is the line. A module is passed at 60 points, or 60 per cent, and each of the four modules is passed or failed on its own. So 18 correct out of 30 is a pass in reading and 17 is not, and no strength anywhere else changes that.

Writing and speaking are each out of 100 as well. The grading forms printed in the practice set split those hundred points up: for writing, 40 points for task 1, 40 for task 2 and 20 for task 3, with each task judged on Erfüllung (did you do the task), Kohärenz (does the text hold together), Wortschatz (vocabulary) and Strukturen (grammar).

One footnote on that form is worth memorising. If Erfüllung is rated E, the lowest band, the whole task scores zero, however good the German is. A text under half the required length or off the topic lands there. That single rule explains most surprising Goethe writing results.

telc: 60 per cent of each part, and the items are not equal

telc adds everything into one 300-point exam: 225 points for the written part and 75 for the oral part. Inside the written part, reading is worth 75, the Sprachbausteine grammar and vocabulary subtest 30, listening 75, and the letter 45.

To pass you need 60 per cent of each part separately, which is 135 of 225 written and 45 of 75 oral. A strong written part cannot rescue a weak oral part, and the reverse is also true.

Now the part that catches people out when they mark their own paper. Within reading and listening, telc gives each of the three parts 25 points regardless of how many items it contains, so the items are worth different amounts:

• Reading part 1, five items, five points each.
• Reading part 2, five items, five points each.
• Reading part 3, ten items, two and a half points each.
• Listening part 1, five items, five points each.
• Listening part 2, ten items, two and a half points each.
• Listening part 3, five items, five points each.
• Sprachbausteine, ten items in each of the two parts, one and a half points each.

Counting your correct answers and calling it a percentage will give you the wrong picture. Two mistakes in reading part 1 cost ten points; two in reading part 3 cost five.

The letter is graded on three criteria, added and then multiplied by three for a maximum of 45. The first criterion is content, and it is banded by how many of the four Leitpunkte, the four given content points, you handled properly. Four handled is the top band, three the next, two the next. If your text has little or nothing to do with the prompt, everything drops to the bottom band.

DTZ: speaking decides your level

The DTZ is not pass or fail. It certifies A2 or B1, and it pools listening and reading into one score.

g.a.s.t. publishes the bands. Listening has 20 items and reading has 25, one point each, so the pooled score is out of 45.

Part	B1	A2	Below A2
Listening and reading together	33 to 45	20 to 32	0 to 19
Writing	15 to 20	7 to 14	0 to 6
Speaking	75 to 100	35 to 74.5	0 to 34.5

The overall rule is the one to write on the front of your folder. BAMF states that you reach a level overall only if you reach it in speaking and in at least one of the two other parts. B1 in listening, reading and writing with A2 speaking gives an A2 certificate.

So if you skipped the speaking section of your DTZ practice test, you have no result at all. Find a partner and do it, with no preparation time, the way the exam runs it.

If the DTZ is your exam, the DTZ practice test guide takes this further: which g.a.s.t. set is current and how it differs from the older one, the writing criteria in full, and every combination of the three part results that produces a certificate.

What your own marking cannot tell you

Reading and listening are exact. You either matched the key or you did not.

Writing and speaking are not, and it is worth being honest about the gap. In the real exam two trained assessors grade each performance independently against criteria they are calibrated on, and Goethe adds a third assessment when one assessor puts you above the pass mark, the other below, and the average still falls short. You are one person marking your own German.

What you can check reliably is everything the criteria define in countable terms:

• Count the content points you actually covered against the number the task named.
• Check that the salutation and the closing are there, and that the register stays formal or informal from the first line to the last.
• Note whether you finished inside the time or ran out.
• If you took the Goethe set, compare your text line by line with the two B1 sample answers printed for that task.

Those four checks catch most of what costs points. Treat the number you write next to writing and speaking as a note to yourself, not a score.

One more limit. A practice test is one paper on one day. Two sections that came out at 55 and 75 might be reversed next week. Look for a section that is clearly behind the others, not for a two-point difference.

Turn the weakest section into one thing to practise

Rank your sections from worst to best and take the worst one. Not all of them.

Weak section	What it usually means	Where to go
Reading	You are reading whole texts instead of hunting for the detail that decides the item	Read for evidence
Listening	You are still writing during the first play, or waiting for a second one that will not come	First play, second play
Sprachbausteine (telc only)	You are comparing three options by ear instead of naming the grammar point	Solve it by category
Writing, content points missed	You are writing a good letter about the wrong things	B1 letter templates, or the German version, B1 Brief schreiben
Writing, ran out of time	You are composing from scratch instead of filling a structure you know	The same two guides, used as a drill
Speaking, the planning task	You are making speeches instead of building one plan with your partner	Plan something together
Speaking, you froze or lost the thread	You have no phrase ready for the moment you do not understand	Repair phrases
Several sections at once, and the words were the problem	Vocabulary, not technique	The B1 vocabulary list

If you would rather have the order worked out for you, the B1 exam practice planner takes the same decision and adds two things this table cannot: your exam’s published weighting, and the number of weeks you actually have left. It runs in your browser and gives no score.

Two of those rows deserve a warning.

If your weak section is speaking and you are taking the DTZ, it outranks everything else on your list, because of the rule above. Practise it first even if reading looks worse on paper.

If several sections came out weak and you cannot tell why, the honest answer is usually vocabulary rather than exam technique. Strategy guides help you use the German you have. They cannot supply words you never learned.

When to sit the second one

Not next week, and not with the same set. You would be remembering answers rather than reading texts.

Practise the one weak section for two or three weeks with the relevant guide, then sit the second practice set as a full timed run. Goethe and the DTZ each publish two sets, so you have exactly one clean retest available. telc publishes only one free test, so if you take telc, spend your single clean run carefully and ask your exam centre or course provider what other practice material they hold.

Between the two runs, compare your timing as well as your scores. Finishing reading with fifteen minutes to spare and getting 55 points is a different problem from running out of time at item 24.

Your next step

Download the practice set for the exam you have actually booked or intend to book. Block out the written timing from the table above in your calendar this week, print the candidate sheets, and sit the reading and listening modules under the clock, playing each recording exactly as often as your exam plays it.

Mark those two sections against the answer key the same evening, while you still remember which items you guessed. Then take the weaker of the two into the matching guide above and give it a fortnight before you touch the second practice set.

If you are still deciding between the exams, the format differences that change your preparation are set out in Goethe vs telc and DTZ vs telc.