The German-Speaking Communities: Culture, Geography and Everyday Life
What this domain tests
You need factual and cultural knowledge about Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the German to discuss it: regions and cities, traditions and festivals, food, education systems, transport, media and the role of dialects. Reading texts in this domain are often informative rather than personal, so recognise the passive voice, nominalisation and comparative statistics.
Concepts to master
- The three countries and their capitals, plus knowledge of major regions (Bavaria, Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia; Tyrol, Styria; Zurich, Geneva).
- The federal structure: Germany has sixteen Bundesländer, Austria nine, Switzerland twenty-six cantons.
- Traditions such as Karneval/Fasching, Oktoberfest, Advent and Christmas markets, and regional food.
- The passive voice: In Deutschland wird viel Wert auf Pünktlichkeit gelegt.
- Comparative and superlative statistics: größer als, am dichtesten besiedelt, weniger als.
- Awareness of dialect and standard German, and of Switzerland's four national languages.
Traps in questions
Do not confuse Austria and Germany. Vienna is in Austria, Salzburg is in Austria, but Munich is in Germany. A frequent trap is a text giving figures in a table or listing percentages: candidates misread Prozent against Millionen. Another trap is the passive: students translate wird gefeiert as future tense. Watch for questions asking you to compare two things, where you must use als (difference) or wie (equality), never mixing them.
Worked example
Text sentence: In Österreich wird der Nationalfeiertag am 26. Oktober gefeiert, während Deutschland seinen Nationalfeiertag am 3. Oktober begeht. Question: Wann feiern die beiden Länder ihren Nationalfeiertag? Answer: Österreich feiert am 26. Oktober, Deutschland am 3. Oktober. Notice wird ... gefeiert is present passive, not future, and während introduces a contrast.
Rule of thumb
When a text gives you numbers, underline the unit (Prozent, Millionen, Euro) before answering. When you see werden plus a past participle, read it as passive unless a time word makes it future.