Castilla y León PAU Portuguese common mistakes
Castilla y León PAU Portuguese · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When a true/false or yes/no comprehension item says 'segundo o texto', the candidate answers from general knowledge or personal opinion about the topic instead of locating the sentence that decides the question.
The topic of PAU texts (environment, youth, technology, tourism) feels familiar, so the candidate skims, recognises the theme and reconstructs a plausible answer rather than reading for the textual evidence.
What to do instead
For every item, underline in the text the exact words that justify the answer and write the line number next to the question before choosing. If no single sentence supports the option, the answer is wrong. Practise with past papers by covering the options, finding the evidence first, then reading the options.
The candidate confuses 'ideia principal' with a detail, choosing as main idea a striking example or statistic that appears early in the text.
The first paragraph is read most carefully and vivid numbers or anecdotes are memorable, while the thesis is often stated or restated in the final paragraph or in a concessive sentence in the middle.
What to do instead
After reading, summarise the whole text in one sentence of your own without looking at the options, then choose the option closest to that summary. Check that the chosen option covers the whole text, not one paragraph, and that it does not merely repeat a supporting example.
The candidate treats Portuguese and Spanish cognates as identical in meaning and answers vocabulary-in-context items with the Spanish sense (e.g. reading 'oficina' as office, 'largo' as long, 'rato' as moment, 'polvo' as dust, 'propina' as tip).
Castilian-speaking candidates read Portuguese fluently enough to feel they understand, so they never verify false friends; the exam deliberately selects such words for the lexical items.
What to do instead
Keep a personal list of false friends with a Portuguese example sentence for each, and in the exam substitute the candidate meaning back into the original sentence to test it. Learn the frequent PAU set: oficina/taller, largo/ancho, rato/momento, polvo/pulpo, propina/matrícula, vaso/planta, assinatura/firma, escritório/oficina.
The candidate renders Portuguese verb forms through Spanish morphology, producing errors in the personal infinitive, the future subjunctive and the compound tenses (e.g. 'para nós fazermos', 'se eu puder', 'tenho feito' vs 'he hecho'), or writes 'tenho ido' where 'fui' is meant.
The Portuguese verb system is the area where Spanish interference is strongest, and these forms are rare enough in classroom input that candidates have never automated them; the personal infinitive and future subjunctive have no direct Spanish equivalent.
What to do instead
Drill three structures in isolation until automatic: personal infinitive after prepositions and conjunctions (antes de sairmos, para chegarem, sem eles saberem), future subjunctive in temporal and conditional clauses (quando chegares, se fores, assim que pudermos), and the difference between pretérito perfeito composto (tenho estudado = repeated/habitual up to now) and simple past (estudei). Write ten original sentences with each and have them corrected.
In the guided composition the candidate writes one long paragraph of chained clauses with 'e' and 'mas', or the opposite, a list of short disconnected sentences, with no opening or closing formula and no paragraph breaks.
Under time pressure candidates draft directly onto the answer sheet and never plan structure, so cohesion devices are the first thing lost; they also do not know which connectors are appropriate in written versus spoken register.
What to do instead
Use a fixed three-part plan: opening sentence stating purpose, two body points, closing sentence. Build a bank of connectors and use at least four: além disso, por outro lado, no entanto, uma vez que, por conseguinte, em primeiro lugar, por fim. Practise writing the same 100-word task twice, once as one block and once with paragraphs, and compare.
The candidate ignores the register and addressee required by the prompt, mixing 'tu' and 'você' forms, using 'você' with a teacher or an institution, or writing an informal message with 'Exmo. Senhor' and no contractions.
The prompt specifies a situation (a message to a friend, a letter to a town council, an email to a host family) but candidates focus only on content; Portuguese-speaking address conventions differ from Spanish and vary between Portugal and Brazil.
What to do instead
Before writing, note on the sheet the addressee and the required pronoun. Use tu/te/teu for friends and peers, você/o(a) senhor(a) for neutral polite address in Brazil, and in Portugal o(a) senhor(a) with third-person verb for formal contexts. Match greetings and sign-offs: Olá!/Beijinhos vs Exmos. Senhores/Com os melhores cumprimentos. Never mix tu and você in the same text.
The candidate answers a sociolinguistic or cultural item by assuming Portugal and Brazil are interchangeable, for example attributing 'você' to European Portuguese informal speech, or not recognising references to fado, saudade, Camões, Fernando Pessoa, the 25 de Abril, or Brazilian and African-Portuguese writers.
Most course input comes from one variety, usually European Portuguese, and cultural references in the texts are treated as decoration rather than examinable content.
What to do instead
Maintain a two-column sheet for Portugal vs Brazil (pronouns, gerund vs 'a + infinitive', vocabulary: autocarro/ônibus, telemóvel/celular, casa de banho/banheiro) and a short list of cultural landmarks with one line of explanation each: Luís de Camões and Os Lusíadas, Fernando Pessoa and the heteronyms, Mia Couto and Mozambique, Machado de Assis, Chico Buarque, fado and Amália Rodrigues, the Carnation Revolution. Read one short text from each Portuguese-speaking country before the exam.
Faced with a literary or culturally loaded text, the candidate answers only literal comprehension items and skips questions about tone, narrator, figurative language or the author's intention, or gives a one-word answer where a short justified response is required.
Literary texts are longer and more elliptical than the informative texts used in class, and candidates do not know the metalanguage needed (narrador, eu lírico, ironia, metáfora, tom) to frame an answer.
What to do instead
Learn a short metalanguage list and a formula for justification: identify the feature, quote three or four words from the text, and explain the effect. For poetry, identify the eu lírico separately from the author. Practise with one short poem and one short prose excerpt per week, writing answers of two or three sentences that always contain a quotation.
The candidate misreads the instruction word in the composition task, writing an opinion essay when the prompt asks for a letter, a news item, a description or a dialogue, or exceeding or falling well short of the stated word count.
The instruction is read once quickly and the familiar topic takes over; word limits are not counted because candidates do not leave time to revise.
What to do instead
Circle the text type, the addressee and the word count in the prompt before planning. Learn the skeleton of each type: letter (greeting, body, sign-off), news item (headline, lead answering what/who/when/where, short body), opinion text (thesis, two arguments, conclusion). Count words during the final two minutes and adjust by adding or cutting one sentence, not by padding.
The candidate leaves accent marks, diacritics and spelling conventions to chance, writing 'e' for 'é', 'esta' for 'está', 'porem' for 'porém', 'voce' for 'você', or applying Spanish rules to 'ção' endings and to 'nh'/'lh'.
Accents are treated as cosmetic, yet in Portuguese they distinguish words and tenses (esta/está, por/por/pôr, falo/falou) and are penalised in the writing mark; candidates also transfer Spanish spelling habits.
What to do instead
Learn the minimal pairs that carry meaning: esta/está, e/é, por/pôr, da/dá, falo/falou, avô/avó. Before handing in, run a targeted check for three things only: verb accents in the first and third person, 'ção/sões' endings, and 'nh/lh' digraphs. Write ten sentences using the minimal pairs and verify each against a dictionary.