Goethe B1 Lesen: all five parts and a strategy for each

• Read the task before the text. In every part you're hunting for specific things, so read the text with that in mind — not just "to understand it".
• Answers go on a separate answer sheet. Transfer them right after each part, not at the end: transferring them takes longer than it feels like it will.
• Don't leave anything blank. A wrong answer costs exactly as much as a blank one — zero. Guessing costs nothing.
• An unfamiliar word almost never decides a task. When it does, it's usually explained nearby.

A personal text: someone writes about moving house, a trip, a new job. Six statements, and for each one you mark whether it's true or false. Recommended time: 10 minutes.

There's one trap here: a statement echoes the text's wording but changes the meaning. The text might say „Ich habe die Wohnung durch eine Freundin gefunden“; the statement says „Sie hat die Wohnung über eine Anzeige gefunden.“ The words are similar, but the fact is different — falsch.

Order of attack: read the six statements first and underline the key word in each one (who, what, when), then read the text and mark your answers as you go. The statements follow the text's own order, which tells you where to look next.

Two newspaper texts of around 200 words each, with three questions per text and options a, b, c. This is the longest part — 20 minutes — and the one where most time gets lost.

The first question on each text is almost always general: what the article is about, what point the author is making. The other two ask about details. Answer the detail questions first and leave the general one for last — by then you already understand the text.

The trap: two of the three options contain something true from the text but don't actually answer the question. Read the question twice and check that your choice answers that specific question, not just the topic.

Ten short ads labelled a to j — courses, services, sales, invitations — and seven situations, for example "A friend of yours is looking for an evening German course." Match each situation to an ad. Each ad can only be used once, and one situation has no matching ad at all — mark 0 for that one.

Find the zero last: place the pairs you're sure of first, then come back to whatever's left. The trap here is an ad on the same topic with the wrong condition — the course exists, but in the morning, not the evening; the flat is for rent, but unfurnished. Check every condition in the situation, not just the topic.

Budget 10 minutes. This part looks easy, but it's exactly where seven points get lost to missing a single word.

Seven short opinions from readers on one topic — a ban on something, a new rule, a contested question. For each one, decide whether the writer is for it or against it. Recommended time: 15 minutes.

The difficulty is that people rarely say „ich bin dafür.“ They say „Ich verstehe die Sorgen, aber…“ — and what comes after „aber“ is what actually decides it. Read to the end: the first half of a comment is often a concession, and the real position shows up in the second half.

Watch for „zwar … aber“, „einerseits … andererseits“, „trotzdem“. The writer's actual position is always in the part after the contrast.

House rules, course rules, pool rules, a device manual — a dry text with numbered points. Four questions with options a, b, c, 10 minutes. This is the easiest part, and it comes last: if you overspent your time in Teil 2, four guaranteed points end up blank on the sheet.

The questions here ask about specific conditions: by which date, how many days in advance, who is allowed to do what. Find the number or word from the question in the text and read only that paragraph — you don't need to read the whole text.

If you can feel you won't finish, do Teil 5 before Teil 4: that's four points for ten minutes, against seven points for fifteen minutes in Teil 4.

Training for this part means working against the clock, part by part — not "read some German," but running Teil 3 three times in a row, checking which conditions tripped you up, and running it again. In doch!, all five parts follow the exam's own rules, with a timer and a full breakdown of every answer, and you can tap an unfamiliar word to look it up — you won't have that option in the exam, but during practice it saves you half an hour with a dictionary.