Andalusia PAU German common mistakes
Andalusia PAU German · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering reading-comprehension questions by copying a whole sentence from the text instead of producing the requested short answer or reformulation.
Candidates spot the relevant passage and stop thinking once they recognise the words; the exam instruction often says 'antworten Sie in eigenen Worten' or limits the answer, and copying feels safe because the wording is guaranteed correct.
What to do instead
Before writing, underline the exact words in the text that answer the question, then cover the text and write the answer from memory in one short sentence. Check that no more than one or two content words are identical to the original. Practise with past papers where the mark scheme penalises verbatim lifting.
Treating true/false or multiple-choice reading items as vocabulary tests and choosing the option that contains a familiar word rather than the option that matches the text's meaning.
Distractors are deliberately built from words that appear in the text, so recognition of surface vocabulary is mistaken for comprehension; under time pressure candidates match strings instead of meaning.
What to do instead
For each option, go back to the text and find the sentence that would have to be true for that option to be correct. If you cannot point to it, eliminate the option. Mark in the text where each answer is justified so that every choice has textual evidence.
Missing implicit or inference questions (the writer's attitude, the purpose of a paragraph, what happens next) and answering only with literal information stated in the text.
School practice often rewards literal extraction, so candidates do not notice that a question asks for a conclusion; they also lack the vocabulary of attitude and stance (kritisch, befürworten, ablehnen, ironisch).
What to do instead
Build a short list of stance and function words (Meinung, Absicht, Kritik, Vorschlag, Folge) and practise labelling paragraphs with them. For inference items, ask 'which sentence in the text supports this, and what does it imply beyond its literal content?'
Filling grammar gaps by ear or by translating from Spanish, producing errors in case, verb position and tense that a Spanish speaker typically makes.
Spanish has no case system on nouns and articles, no verb-final subordinate clause order, and a different use of past tenses, so direct translation produces forms like 'ich habe nach Berlin gefahren' for a completed single action or 'weil ich bin müde'.
What to do instead
Drill the three contrast points explicitly: (a) accusative versus dative after prepositions and verbs, (b) verb-second in main clauses and verb-final in weil/dass/obwohl clauses, (c) Präteritum versus Perfekt in written versus spoken narrative. Do ten transformation items per point and say the rule aloud before each answer.
Ignoring the context sentence in lexical items and choosing a word that is a false friend or a near-synonym with the wrong register or collocation.
Spanish–German false friends (bekommen, Gift, Rat, sensibel) and near-synonyms (sagen/erzählen, machen/tun, wissen/kennen) look interchangeable in isolation, and candidates rarely check whether the word fits the grammatical frame of the gap.
What to do instead
For every gap, first identify what the sentence needs grammatically (reflexive? preposition? separable prefix?) and then choose the word. Keep a personal list of false friends and of verb–noun collocations (eine Entscheidung treffen, eine Rolle spielen) and revise it weekly rather than memorising isolated word lists.
Producing word-formation and derivation answers without checking gender, plural or prefix, e.g. writing the wrong article for an abstract noun formed with -heit or -ung, or missing separable prefixes.
The lexical-grammar section often tests derivation (freundlich → Freundlichkeit) and separable/inseparable verbs, and candidates know the meaning but not the grammatical consequences of the suffix.
What to do instead
Learn the rule that nouns in -heit, -keit, -ung, -schaft, -tion are feminine and that -chen and -lein are neuter, and apply it automatically. For separable verbs, decide the stress first (aufstehen is separable, verstehen is not) and then place the prefix correctly in the clause.
Writing a composition that answers the prompt only loosely, omitting one of the required points (for example giving an opinion when the task also asks for advantages and disadvantages).
Candidates focus on producing correct German and run out of time or space before covering all content points, and they do not re-read the prompt after planning.
What to do instead
Spend two minutes turning the prompt into a checklist of required content points and note one keyword per point. After writing, tick each point in the margin. In the exam, a short paragraph per point beats a long introduction that covers nothing.
Writing long, ambitious sentences with relative clauses and subordinating conjunctions that collapse into word-order and agreement errors, instead of controlled complex sentences.
Candidates believe complexity earns marks, but marks are lost faster through broken verb-final order, wrong case after prepositions and missing agreement than they are gained through length.
What to do instead
Use a small set of structures you can control perfectly: weil/dass/obwohl with verb-final order, a relative clause with the correct case, and one infinitive construction (um ... zu, ohne ... zu). Before the exam, memorise five model sentences of each type and reuse them.
Writing the composition in a register and format that does not match the task, e.g. an informal letter with 'Hallo' and du-forms when the prompt asks for a formal email, or no greeting and closing at all.
Candidates concentrate on content and grammar and treat conventions as decoration, but the marking criteria for written production include text type, register and conventions.
What to do instead
Learn two fixed frames: formal (Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, / Mit freundlichen Grüßen) with Sie-forms, and informal (Liebe/Lieber ..., / Viele Grüße) with du-forms. Decide the register in the first minute and check every verb and pronoun agreement with it at the end.
Leaving no time to proofread, so agreement, capitalisation of nouns, comma before subordinate clauses and verb position errors remain in the final text.
Candidates write until the last minute because they plan too little and write too much; they also read their own text for meaning rather than for form, so errors feel correct.
What to do instead
Reserve five minutes and proofread in passes, not all at once: first only nouns for capitalisation, then only verbs for person and tense, then only clauses for verb position and commas. Reading backwards sentence by sentence makes form errors visible.