Aragón PAU Foreign Language II - German common mistakes
Aragón PAU Foreign Language II - German · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the Leseverstehen, the candidate answers with a sentence lifted verbatim from the text that contains the right keyword but does not actually answer the question asked (e.g., the question asks for a reason and the quoted sentence only states a fact).
Keyword matching feels safe under time pressure, so the candidate stops reading once a familiar word appears and never checks whether the quoted clause is semantically the answer type demanded (cause, contrast, opinion, quantity).
What to do instead
Before reading the options or writing, underline the question's operator word (warum, welche Folge, wie viele, wer) and decide what answer type it requires. Then locate the passage and paraphrase it in your own words in the margin; only accept an option if its paraphrase matches your margin note in meaning, not in wording.
The candidate treats a distractor that is true according to general knowledge or personal experience as the correct option, even though the text says something different or says nothing about it.
Background knowledge about topics like environment, social media or work-life balance is strong, and the brain fills gaps rather than marking a statement as 'not stated in the text'.
What to do instead
For each option, write one of three tags next to it: T (text says this), F (text contradicts this), N (text does not say). Only T is correct for true/false items; for multiple choice, eliminate every N option explicitly before choosing. Practise with texts on familiar topics where your prior knowledge is most likely to mislead you.
The candidate misreads negation and hedging scope, e.g., interpreting 'nicht alle Teilnehmer waren überzeugt' as 'kein Teilnehmer war überzeugt', or missing 'kaum', 'selten', 'nur dann, wenn'.
Small function words carry little visual weight, and Spanish/Catalan negation patterns differ in scope, so the candidate processes the sentence with L1 logic.
What to do instead
Build a personal list of scope-bearing items (nicht, kein-, kaum, lediglich, erst, nur, sowohl...als auch, weder...noch, nicht nur...sondern auch) and, in practice, rewrite each such sentence in plain positive German to test your reading. In the exam, circle every negator in the relevant paragraph before answering.
In Wortschatz und Grammatik gap-fill items, the candidate supplies a word that fits the sentence's meaning but not the grammatical slot, e.g., a verb where a noun is required after a preposition, or an adjective without the correct ending.
Attention goes to meaning first, and the candidate does not re-read the surrounding structure (article, preposition, auxiliary) to determine the required word class and case.
What to do instead
For every gap, first identify the slot: what governs it (preposition, article, auxiliary, conjunction) and therefore which word class, case, and ending are needed. Fill the gap, then re-read the whole sentence aloud mentally to check agreement and government. Drill preposition-plus-case combinations and adjective declension tables until the ending choice is automatic.
The candidate confuses separable and inseparable verbs and puts the wrong particle in the gap or the wrong position in the clause (e.g., 'Er hat den Termin abgesagt' vs. 'Er hat den Termin gesagt ab', or splitting 'bekommen' or 'verstehen').
Prefixes like ab-, an-, auf- look identical to inseparable be-, ver-, er- in isolation, and the candidate has not automated the closed list of inseparable prefixes.
What to do instead
Memorise the inseparable prefixes (be-, emp-, ent-, er-, ge-, miss-, ver-, zer-) as a fixed set; anything else is separable. In the exam, when a gap needs a verb, decide separability first, then build the sentence frame (auxiliary + participle, or main verb + particle at the end) before writing.
The candidate writes correct-looking but wrong-case forms after prepositions and two-way prepositions, e.g., 'wegen dem Wetter', 'mit die Freunde', or choosing accusative after 'wegen' or dative after 'für'.
Two-way prepositions depend on whether motion or location is expressed, and genitive-governing prepositions are taught late, so the candidate defaults to the most familiar case.
What to do instead
Keep a three-column reference (accusative-only: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, bis; dative-only: aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, gegenüber; genitive: wegen, trotz, während, statt) and, for two-way prepositions, ask 'Wo?' (dative) or 'Wohin?' (accusative) before writing. In the exam, mark each preposition's case in the margin of the gap-fill section.
In the guided composition, the candidate produces a text that answers the prompt only loosely: it drifts into a general essay on the topic without addressing the specific task (e.g., asking for a opinion letter to a school magazine but writing an informative report).
Under time pressure, the candidate writes whatever vocabulary is available rather than analysing the task type, audience, and required text function.
What to do instead
Spend the first three minutes planning: underline the text type (E-Mail, Leserbrief, Blogbeitrag, Stellungnahme), the audience (formal/informal), and the two or three content points the prompt requires. Write a one-line plan per paragraph and check at the end that each required point appears explicitly.
The candidate writes long, correct sentences but never uses connectors, so the text reads as a list of unrelated statements with no logical links between paragraphs.
The candidate focuses on avoiding grammatical errors and treats cohesion as decoration rather than a scored requirement, and lacks ready-made connector phrases.
What to do instead
Memorise a small functional set and deploy at least one per paragraph: addition (außerdem, darüber hinaus, zudem), contrast (allerdings, dennoch, im Gegensatz dazu), cause (deshalb, daher, aus diesem Grund), concession (obwohl, zwar...aber), example (zum Beispiel, und zwar). Practise rewriting a draft by inserting connectors and checking that each one fits the logical relation.
The candidate mixes register within one text, using informal forms like 'du', 'echt', 'krass', 'Sachen' in a formal letter, or stiff bureaucratic phrasing in a personal e-mail, and uses the wrong salutation/closing formula.
The candidate transfers informal spoken German learned from series and social media into written production, and has not memorised the standard formula pairs.
What to do instead
Fix two templates in memory: formal (Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren / Sehr geehrte Frau X, mit freundlichen Grüßen) and informal (Liebe/Lieber X, viele Grüße / bis bald). Before writing, decide the register and keep a checklist; after writing, scan for du/Sie consistency, contractions, and slang, and replace any mismatch.
The candidate's composition is coherent in content but full of interference errors from Spanish/Catalan: false friends ('bekommen' used as 'get', 'Gift' as 'gift'), literal calques ('Ich habe 20 Jahre' instead of 'Ich bin 20 Jahre alt'), and wrong word order in subordinate clauses.
L1 transfer operates automatically and the candidate does not have a personal error list, so the same errors recur unnoticed.
What to do instead
Maintain a personal interference log of your own recurring errors (false friends, 'seit' vs. 'für', verb-final in dass/weil/obwohl clauses) and review it before each practice write. In the exam, reserve five minutes to proofread specifically for these logged items, reading the text backwards sentence by sentence to catch word-order slips.