Foreign Language (English or German): Comprehension and Accuracy
What is assessed
The foreign-language paper tests reading comprehension, vocabulary in context, grammar accuracy, and short written production. For English, expect tenses (present simple versus present continuous, past simple versus present perfect), conditionals, passive voice, reported speech, modal verbs, comparatives and superlatives, prepositions, and phrasal verbs. For German, expect case endings in the nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, adjective declension, modal verbs, separable prefixes, the perfect tense with haben and sein, and subordinate-clause word order with the verb final.
Reading strategy
Read the questions before the text, then scan for the keywords. Distractors usually repeat words from the passage while changing a single detail - a date, a negation, or a comparison. Watch for not and except in the question stem; they reverse the task.
Grammar traps
English: since and for signal the present perfect, not the past simple - I have lived here since 2019. After if in a first conditional, use the present, not will. German: after weil, dass, and ob the conjugated verb moves to the end - Ich weiß, dass er morgen kommt. Separable prefixes split in the main clause: Ich stehe um sieben Uhr auf. Two-way prepositions take the accusative for motion and the dative for position.
Worked example
English: She ____ in Sarajevo since 2015. Options: lives / lived / has lived / is living. The combination of since plus a past starting point requires the present perfect, so has lived is correct. German: Ich fahre ____ Schule. Options: in die / in der / auf die. Motion toward a place takes the accusative, and Schule is feminine, so in die Schule is correct.
Writing task
Answer every bullet of the prompt, use linking words (however, therefore, because / deshalb, außerdem, obwohl), and keep tenses consistent. A short, accurate text scores better than an ambitious, error-strewn one.