Free B1 exam tool
German B1 exam practice planner
You have sat an official model test and marked it. Now comes the part nobody explains: which section to work on first, and what to leave alone. Tell the planner which exam you are sitting, roughly how each section went, and how much time you actually have. It gives you an ordered plan built from the exam board's own published point weights, and sends each section to the guide that teaches it.
Your choices stay in this tab. They are not saved, submitted, added to the address bar, or included in analytics.
The interactive planner needs JavaScript. The ordering rule, the published weights and the guide for each section are written out below, so you can work out the same plan by hand.
Step 1 of 5
Choose the exam first
A practice plan needs a format
Reading is worth a third of the written part in telc, a whole module of its own in the Goethe exam, and half of a pooled score in the DTZ. Until you know which paper you are sitting, there is no honest order to give you. These three pages settle it, usually in one sitting.
- What B1 means and how the three exams differ
- Goethe or telc: the differences that change your preparation
- DTZ or telc: which one your situation points to
- Where the free official practice tests are, and how to mark one
The exam guide carries a short exam finder if you would rather answer a few questions than read the comparison. Come back here once you have picked one and sat a practice set.
How did each section go?
Use your own marking of the practice test, not a guess about exam day. Choose Not attempted for anything you skipped — that is useful information, not a gap in the form.
Here, the line is 60 points in that module. Each module is passed on its own.
Here, the line is 60 per cent of the part that section belongs to: 135 of 225 written, 45 of 75 oral.
Here, the line is the published B1 band for that part: 33 of 45 for listening and reading together, 15 of 20 for writing, 75 of 100 for speaking.
Check these before we build the plan
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- Exam
- Sections
- Time until the exam
- Practice time a day
Practice plan
Your practice plan
Work through these in the order given. The order follows two published facts: how far behind you marked each section, and how much of the part that is counted on its own that section carries.
You marked every section as not attempted, so there is nothing to put in order yet. Sit one complete official set under the published timing and mark it against the answer key. That result is the whole input this planner needs.
Nothing came out below the line, so there is no section to rebuild. Spend the time on format and timing instead: sit the set you have not used yet, keep the clock strict, and do the speaking part with a real partner rather than skipping it.
Speaking decides your DTZ certificate
g.a.s.t. and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, in German the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge or BAMF, both publish the same overall rule: you reach a level overall only if you reach it in Sprechen and in at least one of the other two parts. B1 in listening, reading and writing with A2 speaking gives an A2 certificate. That is why speaking is first in your list whatever else went wrong.
You have no DTZ result at all yet
You marked speaking as not attempted. Under the rule above, a DTZ practice run without the speaking part cannot tell you your overall level, however the written parts went. Find a partner and do it with no preparation time, the way the exam runs it.
In the exam:
After those, if the time holds
You marked as not attempted. A section you have not sat is an unknown rather than a known gap, so it sits below the sections you measured. Sit it from the same practice set before you decide how much work it needs.
One more thing the DTZ rule gives you: only one of the two written parts has to reach B1 alongside speaking. If you are close on Hören und Lesen and far off on Schreiben, or the other way round, put your effort into the one you are closer on rather than splitting it evenly.
Three or more sections came out below the line. When that happens the honest answer is usually vocabulary rather than exam technique: a strategy guide helps you use the German you have, and cannot supply words you never learned. Work through the B1 vocabulary list alongside the sections above.
When to sit the next official set
One more full timed run is all that fits. Sit it in the next few days, not in the last forty-eight hours, so there is still time to act on what it shows you.
Work the first section on your list for a fortnight, then sit your remaining full set about a week before the exam. Keep the last few days for what that run exposes.
Give the first section on your list two to three weeks, then sit your remaining full set at the mid-point. Use what is left on whatever the second run brings up.
Take the list one section at a time, two to three weeks each. Sit your remaining full set about three weeks before the exam, late enough to measure the work and early enough to still fix something.
Book a date first: an open-ended plan is the one that never gets finished. Then work the list one section at a time and sit your remaining full set about three weeks before that date.
What one session looks like
Fifteen minutes is one drill, not one exam part: five Sprachbausteine items, one reading part, or two repair phrases said out loud until they are automatic. Keep the full timed runs for a weekend slot.
Half an hour is one exam part under its own clock, plus the marking. Mark it the same day, while you still remember which items you guessed. The longer blocks still need a weekend slot.
Three quarters of an hour is one part under the clock, the marking, and a redo of the items you got wrong — which is where most of the learning actually happens.
An hour fits most single modules under their published time, plus the marking, which is enough for a real timed run on a normal evening.
What this plan cannot tell you
It cannot tell you whether you will pass, and it does not try. It has no points from you, only your own judgement of your own marking, and for writing and speaking that judgement is not calibrated: the real exams use two trained assessors working independently, and the Goethe-Institut adds a third assessment in a defined borderline case.
It also cannot tell you that your practice result will repeat. One paper on one day is one sample. Act on a section that is clearly behind the others, not on a two-point difference.
For the marking method itself — where each free set is, how to sit it under the real timing, and how to apply each provider's point rules — use the practice-test guide. If you have exact points written down and want to see them against the published thresholds, that is a different question, answered by the B1 result calculator.
How the planner decides the order
Two things decide it, and you can check both yourself. The first is how far behind you marked each section. The second is how much of the part that is counted on its own that section carries. Sections you marked clearly above the line drop out entirely, and the rest are sorted by gap first, then by weight, then by the order the exam runs.
One rule sits above all of that. In the Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer, speaking decides your certificate: the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees states that you reach a level overall only if you reach it in Sprechen and in at least one of the other two parts. So on the DTZ, a weak speaking section goes first however the rest of the paper went.
The published weights
These are arithmetic on the providers' own point tables, not our opinion. The share column answers one question: of the part that is counted separately, how much does this section carry?
| Exam | Section | Points | Part counted on its own | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goethe-Zertifikat B1 | Reading (Lesen) | 30 items, converted to 100 points | the Lesen module | 100% |
| Listening (Hören) | 30 items, converted to 100 points | the Hören module | 100% | |
| Writing (Schreiben) | 100 points across three tasks | the Schreiben module | 100% | |
| Speaking (Sprechen) | 100 points | the Sprechen module | 100% | |
| telc Deutsch B1 | Reading (Leseverstehen) | 75 of the 225-point written part | the written part | 33.3% |
| Language elements (Sprachbausteine) | 30 of the 225-point written part | the written part | 13.3% | |
| Listening (Hörverstehen) | 75 of the 225-point written part | the written part | 33.3% | |
| Writing (Schriftlicher Ausdruck) | 45 of the 225-point written part | the written part | 20% | |
| Speaking (Mündlicher Ausdruck) | 75 points, the whole oral part | the oral part | 100% | |
| Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer | Reading (Lesen) | 25 items, pooled with listening into one score out of 45 | Hören und Lesen | 55.6% |
| Listening (Hören) | 20 items, pooled with reading into one score out of 45 | Hören und Lesen | 44.4% | |
| Writing (Schreiben) | 20 points | Schreiben | 100% | |
| Speaking (Sprechen) | 100 points | Sprechen | 100% |
Sources for every figure above: the Goethe rules for administering the B1 exam, in force since 1 September 2025; the points and weighting table printed in the free telc Übungstest; and the g.a.s.t. description of the DTZ, which publishes the result bands.
The pass rule in each exam
- Goethe-Zertifikat B1. Four separate modules. Each is out of 100 points and each is passed on its own at 60 points, or 60 per cent. A strong module cannot rescue a weak one.
- telc Deutsch B1. One 300-point exam in two parts that pass separately: 135 of 225 in the written part and 45 of 75 in the oral part. Neither part can rescue the other.
- Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer. Not pass or fail. The certificate states A2 or B1. Listening and reading are pooled into one 45-point score, writing is out of 20 and speaking is out of 100. You reach a level overall only if you reach it in Sprechen and in at least one of the other two parts.
Where each weak section goes
The planner links you straight to one of these. The same table works by hand if you would rather skip the tool.
| Weak section | Guide |
|---|---|
| Reading | Read for evidence |
| Listening | First play, second play |
| Sprachbausteine (telc only) | Solve it by category |
| Writing | Letter templates, or the same method in German |
| Speaking, the planning task | Plan something together |
| Speaking, freezing or losing the thread | Repair phrases |
| Several sections at once | The B1 vocabulary list |
What is ours and what is theirs
The point weights, the pass rules and the time limits come from the exam boards, linked above. How many sections fit into the weeks you have, and what fits into one session, is our own scheduling: one focus section under two weeks, two for two to four weeks, three for five to eight, and the whole list beyond that. Treat it as a sensible starting shape, not a rule from a provider.
This is not a pass prediction
The planner never asks for your points, and it cannot tell you whether you will pass. It works from your own judgement of your own marking, and for writing and speaking that judgement is not calibrated: the real exams use two trained assessors working independently, and the Goethe-Institut adds a third assessment in a defined borderline case. Use it to decide what to do this week.
If you have not sat a practice test yet, start with the practice-test guide: it shows where every free official set is, how to sit one under the real timing, and how to mark it with the provider's own point rules. To sit it with the published order and clock kept for you, use the timed mock exam runner. If you have not chosen an exam yet, read the B1 exam guide first. And if what you actually want is your exact points measured against the published thresholds, use the B1 result calculator instead — that is the question this planner deliberately does not ask.