telc B1 Leseverstehen: format, points and free practice

How is Leseverstehen structured?

Leseverstehen and Sprachbausteine share one 90-minute block. You read short texts, a longer article and classified ads, and answer 20 questions worth 75 points in total.

Teil 1: matching headlines to texts

You get ten headlines and five short texts, usually news items from papers or newsletters. For each text you pick the headline that captures its main point. Five headlines are left over at the end, and every correct match is worth five points.

The wrong headlines are rarely pure invention. They almost always pick up a real detail from one of the texts but twist the main point. So ask yourself first for every text: what is this about overall? A headline that only matches a side detail is bait.

Teil 2: understanding a longer text in detail

The basis is a longer newspaper or magazine article, typically about work, health or everyday topics. You answer five questions with three options each. This part tests Detailverstehen: the questions follow the order of the text, and every correct answer counts five points.

Read the five questions first and mark their key words, then read the text. The correct option almost always paraphrases the text, while wrong options like to repeat its words literally. When two options sound similar, a small word like "only", "always" or "many" usually decides it.

Teil 3: finding the right ad for each situation

Here you read ten everyday situations and twelve short ads, for example courses, apartment listings or services. For every situation you look for the ad that genuinely fits. Each ad can be used at most once, and when no ad fits a situation you mark "x". The ten items are worth 2.5 points each.

Work from the situation, not from the ads. Underline the two or three decisive conditions in each situation, such as place, time or price, and check the ads against those points only. An ad that almost fits but misses one condition is wrong.

A worked example

Suppose a short text reports that a city is building new bike paths, but rising costs will push the project two years past its planned finish. The candidate headlines are "Stadt investiert in Fahrradwege" (city invests in bike paths) and "Radwegeausbau verzögert sich" (bike path expansion delayed).

Both sound plausible, and that is exactly the trap. The text does mention the investment, but its actual news is the delay. The first headline only matches the background, the second matches the main point. So the second one is correct.

This reasoning works the same way in all three parts: first understand the task precisely, then find the passage in the text that confirms or contradicts it. Let meaning guide you, not familiar words.

Timing: 90 minutes for two exam parts

Leseverstehen and Sprachbausteine share one 90-minute block with no announcement in between. A proven split: about 25 minutes for Teil 1, 20 minutes each for Teil 2 and Teil 3, around 20 minutes for the two Sprachbausteine parts and five minutes in reserve.

Budget time for transferring your answers to the answer sheet, because only the answer sheet is graded. Transferring everything in the last two minutes invites careless mistakes. Best practice is to transfer after each part; it costs almost no time and takes off pressure.

Typical mistakes in Leseverstehen

The most common mistake is word matching: choosing an option because the same words appear in the text. The task authors exploit this deliberately, and correct answers are almost always paraphrases. Just as costly is reading every text thoroughly from start to finish instead of hunting for the information the questions actually ask for.

Many candidates also get stuck too long on one hard item. Every item in a part counts the same, and a skipped item costs exactly as many points as a wrong one. There are no negative points: when in doubt, mark your best guess and move on.