telc B1: I Passed. Here's an Update.

In June I wrote a post called I'm Building an Exam App Before I've Passed It. I promised I'd tell you how August went: best case a slightly smug success story, worst case a cautionary tale.

I passed, with 241 out of 300, grade gut. So this is the smug one, mostly.

The day before the exam I sat one last full mock exam in Yulo and scored 240.5. The app I built to trick myself into studying predicted my real result to within half a point, which I'm still a bit amazed by. Some of that was luck, though, and the way I got there is perhaps more useful to you than numbers.

My real result

You need 135 of 225 on the written exam and 45 of 75 on the oral, separately. I cleared both with room to spare, which you would not have bet on if you'd seen my mock exams.

My mock exam scores

I sat my first full mock on June 17, the day before I published the first post. So when I wrote "I haven't even taken it yet," I had a 189 out of 300 sitting in my history. That's a pass on paper and a coin flip in practice.

After that I didn't sit another full mock for two months. Part of the reason was that I was still building the app, so some of my study time went into fixing it instead of using it. I kept practising, just one part at a time (more on that below). I sat the next three full mocks in the four days before the exam:

Each attempt beat the one before it, but look at Mock 2. Four days before the real exam I scored 177 on the written part, miles above the 135 I needed, and then failed the whole thing with 44 out of 75 on the oral. One point under the line.

telc doesn't average the two parts, so a great written score can't carry a weak oral. Goethe and ÖSD are even stricter, although they're kinder when you fail:

If one skill is weaker than the others, that alone might be a reason to choose telc, because the other skills in the same part can make up for it. If you'd rather risk a smaller retake, Goethe or ÖSD might suit you better.

Speaking was always the boss fight

In the first post I called the oral exam the boss fight. My four mock oral scores were 45, 44, 46 and 52, and three of those are within a point of the pass mark.

So alongside the full mocks I drilled speaking on its own. Yulo has focused sessions where you practise one part of the exam at a time, and I did 25 of them for speaking: 11 for Kontaktaufnahme starting in May, six for Gemeinsam eine Aufgabe lösen, and eight for Gespräch über ein Thema, which I left until August. The scores went up and down, and I failed a few along the way. I was also tuning the difficulty while building the app, so some of the dips in my practice scores may just be me making the questions harder.

On the morning of August 15 I did three speaking drills, and about an hour later I failed the oral in Mock 2 by a point.

Then the real exam gave me my best oral score ever, eight points above any mock:

The full mocks showed me where the problem was, and the focused sessions are where I worked on it. If I could keep only one habit from all of this, it would be that one. (If you want to know what actually happens in that room, I wrote about the telc B1 speaking exam in July.)

Reading and writing

While speaking went better than expected, reading and the letter, the two sections I thought were safe, both went worse.

My mock reading scores went 52.5, 67.5, 67.5, then a perfect 75 the day before, and most of my 33 focused reading sessions scored 80% or more. I underestimated it and stopped treating it as a risk, and in the exam I got 62.5.

The letter was the part I was most confident about. In June I even wrote "writing I can template." I got 27 out of 45, exactly 60%, which is a pass but lower than I expected. I never saw the marked script, so I can't say exactly why, but my best guess is that it was the part I practised least: two focused sessions, against 25 for speaking. If you're preparing for it, read about the rule that can give your letter 0 points first.

Listening went the other way. My mocks were all over the place (45, 52.5, 70, 55), but I'd done 30 focused listening sessions, and in the exam I got 67.5, close to my best.

My mocks gave me a good idea of my overall score, but they didn't tell me which section would let me down on the day.

Exam day

I got there, registered, and sat the digital version of the exam. I cleared my thoughts and tried to focus on the day.

The useful thing to know about the digital written exam is that you can move freely between the sections. Nothing is locked in until you submit the whole written part, so you can jump ahead, come back, and finish the sections in whatever order you like.

Listening is the exception. Each recording plays once or twice, depending on the task, and you can't replay it. You can still go back and change your answers, but by then you're working from memory, so give it your full concentration while it plays.

What I'd do in the written exam:

1. Start with your strengths and get the points you're confident about.
2. Go back to the harder parts afterwards, since nothing is final yet.
3. Review your answers before you submit, because once you send it, it's done.
4. In the digital exam you get a chance to test your headphones before you start. Use it, and make sure you can hear the audio clearly through them.

This is how it worked when I sat the exam. telc might have changed things by the time you read this, so check before you go.

Did building the app help?

In June I described Yulo as a hack: bolting the thing I hate (studying) onto the thing I love (writing code) so I'd end up studying by accident. Mostly, it worked.

Building the scoring system meant I knew where every point came from. I knew the oral was my real risk, and the mocks confirmed it. What it didn't do was make me fluent. Knowing how a question is built doesn't help much when you have to answer one under pressure. The only fix I found for that was opening my mouth, badly, over and over, 25 times in my case.

What I'd tell someone booking telc B1 now

I said in the first post that I'm sceptical of polished "I passed, here's how" advice from people who've forgotten what struggling feels like. I passed in August and I haven't forgotten yet, so this is my advice:

1. Learn the scoring before the content. You need 60% on the written and 60% on the oral, separately.
2. Use full mocks to find your weak spot, then drill that part on its own. My mocks said speaking was the risk, and 25 focused sessions later the real oral was my best.
3. Don't neglect the part you think is safe. I practised the letter only twice because I assumed it was fine, and it was my lowest score.
4. Don't trust a perfect mock score. My 75 out of 75 in reading became 62.5.
5. If your oral mocks sit near 45, take that seriously. One point cost me a whole mock exam.
6. Book the date first. Without a deadline I'd still be "about to start studying."

What happens next

I'll keep working on Yulo, adding new features and improving the ones already there. It's a hobby project, so it gets as much time as I can give it, just not as much as it got this summer. If people start using it, I'll build more on top of it.

And 116117? No, I never called. Then again, you only call it when someone's unwell, so that's one box I'm happy to leave unticked forever. For now the big one is cleared, and so are the anxiety and stress that came with it.

If you're somewhere on the A2 to B1 slope right now, unmotivated, with a date on the calendar you keep pretending isn't real, it's doable. I did it with a dodgy elbow and an app as my study plan.

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telc B1 FAQ

Can a mock exam predict your real telc B1 score?
In my case it came close. My last full mock scored 240.5 out of 300 and the real exam scored 241. My individual sections moved a lot in both directions, though, so for me the mocks were useful for the overall picture but not for guessing each section.

What happens if you pass the written exam but fail the oral?
You fail the exam. The written and oral parts are scored separately and you need 60% in each, so a strong written score can't make up for an oral below 45 out of 75.

Can you go back between sections in the digital telc B1 written exam?
When I sat it, yes. You could move between sections freely until you submitted the written exam. Listening was the exception: you could still change your answers, but each recording only played once or twice. Check the current rules before your exam, since the format can change.

How should I practise for the telc B1 speaking exam?
Practise each part on its own as well as in full mock exams. The full mocks show you which part is weak, and focused practice on that part is what improves it.

What grade do you get with 241 points in telc B1?
241 out of 300 is in the gut (good) band, which runs from 240 to 269.5 points, as long as you've passed both the written and oral parts.