Olá a todos! I have just completed the latest iteration of the A2 CIPLE exam, the Portuguese language test that Portuguese residents need to apply for citizenship, and I thought I would give you some feedback to help you with your studies and avoid the mistakes that I made. So without further ado, let’s get into it!
My Journey to the A2 CIPLE Exam
I have now been in Portugal for 4.5 years and plan to apply as soon as I can for Portuguese citizenship, given the long processing time. I do not have a Portuguese-speaking partner and do not use Portuguese for work, so I admit that I am quite isolated when it comes to speaking Portuguese. I currently only use it in day-to-day interactions and speaking with my Portuguese friends in limited conversations. The last thing you should know is that I am from the United States and grew up with only English around me. I did not encounter any other languages until the age of 14 when I started learning my first French in high school, later followed by four years of Spanish.
I subscribed to a few online learning programs when I first arrived in Portugal during the pandemic, but I only learned basic phrases at an A1 level and then got busy with the bureaucracy that happens when you first settle into life here. I didn’t end up studying Portuguese again in earnest until the year before my A2 exam, when I enrolled in a Portuguese language school in Lisbon and took three weeks of immersion at 20 hours per week. While it was hard to balance my work with 20 hours of language instruction per week, I did learn quite a lot of grammar and got to speak a lot in class with students from around the world. If you are looking to engage with other learners and check out some interesting cultural activities, I would recommend starting with some Portuguese immersion at a language school.
Six months before my test, I decided that I needed to study in a more serious way. To use my time most effectively, I found a teacher on Preply from Portugal and started taking three 50-minute lessons per week. This greatly helped my Portuguese progress although it certainly didn’t happen overnight. At first, I felt that I was only learning grammar structure after grammar structure. However, at around the fifth month, things started to come together. I confess that I didn’t study much outside of class beyond my homework and still didn’t have the chance to use my Portuguese in Lisbon to the extent that I could have to improve rapidly. There is nothing like immersing yourself in Portuguese all day every day to really get the words and phrases to stick in your head.
Scheduling the Test
The best time to schedule the test for the calendar year is the first week of January, even if you want to take the test in July or October. I can’t stress this enough. If you want to take the test in Portugal, you need to schedule it as soon as possible. Spots fill up incredibly quickly – and, if you can’t get a slot, you will have to go to Madrid, Valencia, or even an institution in a foreign country further afield. SCHEDULE YOUR TEST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. It currently costs €85 and you have 24 hours to make the payment after you register your spot.
Please don’t do what I did and schedule a back-up test that takes place before you get the grades back from your first test. It takes two months to receive the grades back from your A2 CIPLE test (yes, even in this day and age), so, if you want to take a back-up test, make sure that it is at least two months later. Schedule both tests at the same time far in advance so you can plan your study schedule around it. It is possible, but not easy, to get a refund for a test if you contact the test center.
The Week Before the Test
In the few days before your test, you will receive a few emails from the test system called CAPLE that administers the CIPLE. Make sure you read them, as they include very important information about the test.
The first email I received was a reminder of the test date, time, location (in my case, the Faculdade de Letras at the University of Lisbon), and the number of the room where you will take the test. You will also receive links to three videos that explain what you need to bring, rules about what you can bring on the test day, and finally what you can do in the classroom itself.
The second email contained a form that I needed to sign granting the testing authority the right to record me for the speaking section of the test. You need to print and sign this form and bring it on the test day. Do not forget.
What You Need to Bring to the Test Itself
On the day of the A2 CIPLE test, you need to bring six things:
- A sharpened pencil (I also brought a sharpener and kept it in my bag)
- A blue or black pen
- An eraser
- A copy of the identification document that you used to sign up for the test (in my case, it was my passport, but I also brought my residence card as a back-up).
- The printed and signed copy of the video release form
- A printed copy of the email that contains your room number for the test (see email #1 above)
As I don’t have a printer at home, I made sure to get this done days in advance not the day before. Imagine if there had suddenly been another blackout and you couldn’t get your documents printed the day before. Get this done early. Don’t leave anything to chance or assume that systems will be functioning as usual.
Pro-Tip: Bring some snacks or even a sandwich for lunch time. The line at the tiny snack stand within the University of Lisbon’s Humanities Building got very long very quickly during the short break. It’s much easier to bring your own food.
One final important note here: DON’T DO WHAT I DID and decide to eat adventurously the day or two before the test. Tragically, I woke at 2:30 am on the morning of my test vomiting and with what suddenly seemed to be a case of violent food poisoning. I had cooked a Pingo Doce pepperoni pizza at home the night before and had one beer, but the day before that, I had eaten an oyster at a fancy restaurant.
While the jury is still out on what caused my food poisoning (which ultimately meant that I showed up for my test on what felt like the verge of death having had no breakfast or coffee, still vomiting in the bathroom in addition to during the test), I would not wish what I went through on testing day on my worst enemy after all that study. Eat the plainest food that you can and leave nothing to culinary chance for at least three days before your test.
Also bring medication with you to the testing facility. The only way that I made it through my test was because I had the foresight to bring a plastic bag with me (that shielded the vomit from the floor and other test takers’ eyes) and another student in my row offered me two activated charcoal tablets, which stopped my stomach just long enough to rally through the final section of the test.
Rules for the Testing Room
Once you find your room number for the A2 test, you are allowed to enter 30 minutes before the test begins. This was 8:30 am in my case. You also must wait for the proctor who administers the test to call your name before you can enter the classroom. You can bring your personal belongings into the classroom, but your phone must be completely switched off while testing is underway. You should also check that the name card on the table where you are seated matches the spelling of your name and the test number (which you receive when you register). You need to put the test number on the video release form so you will know it and be able to confirm that these numbers are the same.
Note that you cannot write your name on anything, not any test papers that you receive, not your scratch paper, or the answer sheet itself. Do not write your name on anything or you will be disqualified! You are also not allowed to talk or leave the room once the testing begins – so make sure you don’t suddenly need to use the bathroom (another reason that I brought the plastic “vomit” bag).
So What About the Test Itself?
Can you believe that we’ve gotten this far and I haven’t even mentioned the test itself? Well, it’s finally that time.
The first part of the test is a combined 1 hour and 15 minutes for the reading and the writing section. There are 20 reading comprehension questions and two writing passages – one short and one long. Interestingly, it doesn’t matter which section you do first. This is entirely up to you. You can do a little of the reading and then go to the writing and finish the reading later, or vice versa. The reading section must be done in pencil while the writing must be done in pen. You receive one piece of scratch paper, where it is advised that you write your writing section beforehand.
Reading
For the first five questions, I had to match the email message with the best response. This was followed by the remaining 15 questions based on a series of texts, with the final two being longer texts about different locations in Portugal. For all 20 questions, it’s important to read very carefully and then check again. You might assume something is being said in your head; however, the reality could be very different. Ultimately, I didn’t think that this section was too difficult, as reading has always been my strong suit in Portuguese.
Writing
On this version of the CIPLE, both writing tasks required that you include specific information in the message. Of course, make sure that you include the information requested.
For my first task, I had to write a text message to a friend and invite them to a movie using 25-35 words. It is important to stay within this word range.
For my second task, I had to write a different email to a friend telling them that renovations had finally been completed in my home, what rooms in the house had been fixed, and what I thought about the renovations. This response needed to be 55-80 words.
Listening
There is a 30-minute break between the Reading/Writing section and the Listening section. Take a break, refill your water bottle, and eat a snack that you brought with you because you’re going to need it for what everyone thinks is the hardest section on the test – and with good reason. The listening test seems perfectly designed to trip you up.
The listening section lasts for 30 minutes and includes 30-second breaks between each question to have time to read through the answers before each dialogue begins. The test consisted of 25 questions, which includes 10 questions at the end that are all of a similar style.
The first 15 questions relate to different announcements or conversations and you need to answer the related question about the content. Getting the right answer requires close listening and understanding subtle differences in meaning that are quite difficult to catch. The maddening part of this test is the way that the dialogues contain static, excessive background noise, and even breaks in the dialogue due to the age of the material. The conversations came from old radio and TV interviews, train announcements, etc. Why the testing board wants to confirm whether you can understand interviews with static in the background is beyond me, but it is part of the test. A small note here: if you do have trouble hearing in general, you can request to use headphones during the listening test. Everyone needing headphones takes the test in the same room. You need to let CAPLE know when you register for the test that this is the case for you.
The final 10 questions played ten different mini-dialogues and required me to match the dialogue with the appropriate matching response in the respective situation. This was different from the mock exam sent in the email from the testing board one week before, which only required you to guess the location of the conversation, not a line of dialogue.
Having to read through ten lines of dialogue while making sure they all matched and waiting for the next line seemed unnecessarily complicated, but this is where this section can really get you. It’s full of questions designed to trip you up if you aren’t listening closely. Good luck and be glad that you only need 55% overall to pass the test. Inhale. Exhale.
Speaking
We have come to the last section of the test – and also the shortest – the speaking section! This is the infamous part of the test where you are paired with another student at random from the classroom where you took Parts 1 and 2 of the test and asked to role play a scenario with each other.
At the beginning of the Listening section, we were each given cards with a specific room and time indicated for our speaking section test. My Preply teacher had advised me to find my speaking partner as soon as possible and introduce myself so that I could ascertain how advanced my partner was in terms of his/her speaking ability. As luck would have it, my speaking partner was sitting right next to me and seemed like a pretty close match to my level. I asked my partner if we could meet 30 minutes before our interview and practice speaking, which we ultimately did. I would highly recommend that you do the same.
The speaking section can be anywhere between 12:30 pm and 6 pm, and the time slots are divided at random. It is possible to switch them with others once you are there. I went at 2:50 pm, stomach still feeling unsettled but more stable than before.
My partner and I were instructed to wait outside of the door 10 minutes before our time slot, and we were called in on time by our interviewer. She informed us that we would be recorded during the interview, and we could see a large TV mounted on the corner of the wall and the ceiling acting like a large mirror above, projecting our scared expressions back but at least above us and not directly in front. We were advised to raise our hands when she said our name and then our interview began in three parts.
Part 1: The interviewer asks us basic questions about where we live, how long we have been in Portugal, etc.
Part 2: We had to look at a picture for 30 seconds in silence and then describe it for two minutes. My picture showed five people with their backs to the camera sitting on the edge of a hill looking out a field. I did my best to describe their various items of clothing and hairstyles, but I don’t think my grammar was completely accurate.
Part 3: My partner and I were given pictures of five different sports with the names of the sports printed on the card. We had to say whether we liked or disliked the five different sports and explain why. Finally, we had to decide on which sport we would play together over the weekend.
The speaking section took about 15 minutes total. The interviewer thanked us as we left, I wished my partner well, and I took the subway home. The end of a long journey was finally over – or so I hope, as I now need to wait two more months to receive my score.
Final Thoughts
The A2 test overall wasn’t as challenging as I expected in the reading and writing sections. I had trained for much harder topics but had stupidly skipped any practice where I described a picture. If I fail this test, I will be sure to practice picture description before I take a second test. While the day was certainly one I will never forget due to my extreme duress during the test, I am still proud of the Portuguese I have learned over these last six months. I can generally understand many more situations in everyday life in Portugal.
Ultimately, I wish I had started learning Portuguese during the first year that I arrived and taken the test in Year 2. That way, I would’ve been able to function better in everyday Portuguese society for much longer. Once you get a passing grade, you never need to retest, so I should have convinced myself to go for it, but I didn’t apply myself earlier on.
If you do not have the time to sit for the nine-month government test that is the equivalent of passing the A2 test in Portugal, it is certainly possible to study for the official A2 CIPLE test and pass it on your own. Just hire an online teacher or practice daily with your Portuguese friends and you can achieve it! We wish you the best in your Portuguese studies!
