Leseverstehen / Reading Comprehension (Teil A)
Reading comprehension (Leseverstehen) is the other half of Teil A: two to four authentic texts - a longer non-fiction article or speech transcript plus shorter items - answered without a dictionary. Items range from multiple choice and multiple matching to statement-plus-justification and short answers. The test is not whether you understand every word but whether you can locate, weigh and evidence a specific piece of meaning.
Match your reading mode to the item
- Skimming: topic, purpose, register, headline matching - two minutes, first and last paragraph, topic sentences.
- Scanning: names, dates, figures for detail items - hunt the form of the answer (capital letters, numerals).
- Close reading: inference, attitude and function-of-paragraph items - read the sentence before and after the target.
The decisive test
Before ticking an option, ask: does it answer this stem? Many wrong options are true statements about the text that answer a different question - a cause offered for an effect, a quoted critic's view offered as the author's.
Worked example
Text (original): Critics of the ban argue that it punishes the many for the mistakes of the few; the ministry's own review, however, found that compliance had risen by a third within a year - evidence, officials insist, that the rule changed behaviour rather than merely displacing it. Item: The review is mentioned in order to ... A) show that the ban is unpopular. B) support the claim that the rule altered behaviour. C) prove that critics were ignored. Reasoning: however marks the turn against the critics, so A is contradicted; the review is introduced by officials insist, i.e. as their evidence; changed behaviour rather than merely displacing states exactly what it supports. Answer B. C is a plausible real-world inference with no textual basis - over-inference is a common killer.
Traps that cost marks
- True-in-text, wrong-for-the-item options, the most frequent error in LK papers.
- Ignoring attribution: author versus quoted speaker versus the writer's concession.
- Over-inference from general knowledge or personal opinion.
- Scope words: all, only, mainly, in the long run, initially.
- Misreading NOT, EXCEPT and which is not stated.
- A justification line that contains the answer words but does not prove the statement - quote the clause that carries the evidence.