How the day goes — assembled from the regulations and first-hand reports:
- Identity check — original photo ID, no copies, no phone photos.
- Introduction (10–15 min) by the examiner: levels, adaptivity, timings, formats, rules — plus a demo video of the task types.
- Tablet test: reading → writing → listening in rotation, level by level upwards. The current level is shown in the corner of the screen.
- The interview arrives unannounced: a notification on the tablet — even mid-exercise — and you move to a separate room.
Practicalities
- Provided: tablet, headphones, an external keyboard on request, paper and pencil for notes.
- Phone and smartwatch are handed in switched off. Personal aids (dictionaries, notes) are forbidden.
- Arriving more than 30 minutes late can mean exclusion.
- In the writing part a spellchecker highlights wrong words — without suggesting corrections. Good against typos.
- Maximum test time: 2h30 on the tablet plus ~15 minutes of interview.
The one point almost everyone underestimates
The test is adaptive with closed doors: fall below the threshold twice at one level and that skill is over for the whole sitting — a careless slip in B1 listening can cost you the B2 in that skill, however good you’d be at B2. Precision at A2/B1 matters more than B2-specific knowledge.
- Results arrive by post within 2 working days.
- Appeals: written complaint within 20 days, file inspection within 30, formal appeal within 40 with an independent double re-assessment.