Reading Comprehension (Leseverstehen)
This domain tests whether you can extract information from short German texts of the kind used in the Maharashtra HSC paper: notices, advertisements, simple emails, short articles and dialogues. Questions usually ask for true/false decisions, matching, short answers or completing a table. The paper tests gist, detail and simple inference, not word-for-word translation.
What to do first
- Read the questions before the text and underline the question word: Wann? Wo? Warum? Wer?
- Identify the text type and register: a formal letter uses Sie, an email to a friend uses du.
- Match meaning, not identical words. The text may say Arzt while the question says Doktor.
Worked example
Text: 'Liebe Anna, leider kann ich am Samstag nicht ins Kino kommen, weil ich meiner Mutter helfen muss. Hast du am Sonntag um 16 Uhr Zeit? Viele Grüße, Jonas' Question: Wann können Anna und Jonas ins Kino gehen? Reasoning: Samstag is cancelled by nicht; Sonntag um 16 Uhr is the new proposal. Answer: am Sonntag um 16 Uhr. Do not answer am Samstag simply because that word appears in the text.
Traps
- Negation: nicht, kein and nie reverse the meaning.
- False friends: bekommen means receive, not become; also means therefore, not also.
- Times: halb acht is 7:30, not 8:30.
- Over-answering: write only what the question asks; extra guessed detail can lose marks.