Estonian Upper-Secondary English Exam study guide
Estonian Upper-Secondary English Exam · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Estonian upper-secondary English examination (inglise keele riigieksam) is a national school-leaving and entrance examination taken mainly by students finishing gymnasium. Its results are used both as part of the secondary school graduation record and by Estonian higher-education institutions in admissions, so a strong grade can matter beyond school. The Estonian Upper-Secondary English Exam study guide has 4 sections and about 2,002 words.
01Reading Comprehension: Answering Items on Evidence, Not Keywords
Reading comprehension in the Estonian upper-secondary English exam checks whether you can handle authentic English texts at B2, with some items pushing into C1. Tasks are usually multiple choice, matching headings or statements to paragraphs, true/false/not stated, and gapped summaries or sentence completion governed by a word limit.
520 words, about 3 min02Listening Comprehension: Handling Repair, Paraphrase and Numbers
Listening comprehension uses short monologues and dialogues - announcements, interviews, phone calls, short talks - at near-natural speed, in a mix of British, American and other accents. Typical tasks are multiple choice, matching speakers to statements, and note or sentence completion under a strict word limit.
476 words, about 2 min03Writing: Task Achievement, Register and Controlled Range
You produce one or two texts - typically a shorter transactional text (an informal email, or a formal letter of application or complaint, around 150–200 words) and a longer discursive one (an opinion essay, article or report, around 200–250 words). Markers assess task achievement (all content points covered, genre and register appropriate), organisation, range and accuracy.
523 words, about 3 min04Language Use: Open Cloze, Word Formation and Collocation
Grammar and vocabulary are tested discretely - open cloze with one word per gap, word formation from a given stem, multiple choice on vocabulary and dependent prepositions, and sentence-level transformation. This is the most learnable part of the exam: the tested areas recur, and the errors are predictable.
483 words, about 2 min