The DALF C1 will test you on the four skills in French: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Here's what you can expect from the test as well as suggestions about how to prepare.
Reading comprehension
50 minutes / 25 points
You'll be given a literary or journalistic text of up to 2,000 words and a questionnaire to test your comprehension.
Tips
Read the document carefully, then study the questions. Be sure you understand them before reading a second time. Watch out for multi-part questions and word play. Answer the questions without going into excessive detail: the key here is to demonstrate your reading comprehension, not your writing ability.
Practice
The best way to prepare for the reading portion is to read - every day. Here at Progress with Lawless French, we publish French articles and transcripts on a variety of topics in our Bilingual Reader, where you can read the French and click any phrase to see the English translation as well as related grammar lessons:
C1: Advanced French reading exercises
Read newspapers and magazines and literature to improve your understanding of current events, French culture, grammar, and vocabulary.
Also try these online exercises from Kwiziq's Education Partners: Reading articles | C1 reading comprehension
Writing skills
2½ hours / 25 points
Two writing exercises in the domain of your choice: literature/social science or science.
- Combine the major points of several documents into a single, 1,000-word summary.
- Write a well-argued essay based on documents provided.
Tips
Read the documents very carefully and make sure you understand the tasks assigned to you. Consider your intended audience: there's a difference between writing a summary of newspaper articles and an essay about a controversial topic. Think about what you should say in your introduction, the different points you want to make, and how to draw everything together into a conclusion. It will probably help to make an outline before you begin writing.
Practice
Progress with Lawless French publishes self-corrected writing challenges for Premium subscribers every Friday:
C1: Advanced French writing challenges
Reading regularly is, once again, an excellent way to improve your knowledge of French structure, grammar, and vocabulary. Read opinion pieces, newspapers and essays to get a sense of how these sorts of writings are put together. Try writing a short essay and posting it on an online forum such as Hi-Native to request comments and corrections from native French speakers. Ask them to be tatillon (pernickety) in their assessment so that you can improve as much as possible.
Listening comprehension
40 minutes / 25 points
You'll listen to several different recordings:
- Short recordings (played once) consisting of informational pieces like news briefs, surveys, and commercials, and a multiple-choice questionnaire.
- Long recording (up to 10 minutes, played twice) of an interview, class, seminar, etc., with multiple-choice and essay questions.
Tips
Remember that this is a comprehension test, so it's more important to answer the questions accurately than to write in flawless French.
Practice
You can and should practice every day: listen to the radio, watch TV and movies, talk to people.
The Progress with Lawless French reading exercises mentioned above also include videos or audio files so that you can work on your listening comprehension too:
C1: Advanced French listening exercises
Also try some online exercises from Kwiziq's Education Partners: C1 listening comprehension | Listening exercises
Speaking skills
1½ hours / 25 points
You'll be given an hour to prepare an oral presentation based on several documents in the domain of your choice (literature/social science or science). After making your presentation, you'll discuss it with the examiners.
Tips
Read the documents thoroughly. Think very carefully about what they say and imply, and how you can summarize and expand upon them. You can agree or argue with the basic premise, but either way you'll want to use short quotations from the texts and examples from current events to support your point of view.
Practice
It's essential to talk to a variety of native speakers, as often and as as much as possible.
- Practice speaking French, whether or not you're in France
- Online speaking practice
- Solo speaking practice
Beyond the four skills
To perfect your French grammar, sign up for a free account to get your personalized study program based on your French level test.
Related info: Official French Tests & Diplomas | French Test Prep
