Reading: extended written and visual German texts
Reading is externally assessed. You are given a variety of extended written and/or visual German texts - newspaper articles, blogs, short stories, letters to the editor, adverts, infographics, websites - and asked to demonstrate understanding of them. Questions and answers are in English (or te reo Māori); difficult vocabulary is usually glossed. The texts are authentic in style, so expect long sentences, noun-heavy phrasing and opinion mixed with fact.
Text types and what each demands
- Opinion pieces and Leserbriefe: identify the writer's position and, crucially, the concession they make before it.
- Narrative texts: track time and agency - Präteritum carries the narration, Perfekt appears in dialogue, and the subject may be buried late in the sentence.
- Combined visual and written texts: the caption, chart or statistic usually reframes the headline, so read both before answering.
Strategies that pay
- Read the questions first, then hunt the relevant paragraph; question order generally follows text order.
- Treat connectives as signposts: einerseits … andererseits, zwar … aber, folglich, dennoch, im Gegensatz dazu.
- Unpack long noun phrases from the right: die von der Regierung geplante Erhöhung der Ticketpreise = the ticket-price rise planned by the government.
- Find the finite verb: in a subordinate clause it waits at the end (…, weil die Stadt den Bau jahrelang blockiert hatte).
Worked example
Sentence: „Obwohl die Stadt den Bau genehmigt hatte, zogen die Anwohner vor Gericht, weil sie um ihre Ruhe fürchteten.“ Question: Why did the residents go to court? Reasoning: obwohl opens a concession - the permit had already been granted, which is background, not the reason. zogen … vor Gericht is the main clause (vor Gericht ziehen = to go to court). weil sends the actual cause to the end: sie fürchteten um ihre Ruhe, they feared for their peace and quiet. Answer: they feared losing their quiet, even though the permit had already been granted.
Traps that cost marks
- Answering the general topic (they opposed the building) when the question asks why - vague answers lose the inference marks.
- Ignoring the concession half of obwohl or zwar … aber, which can reverse the point entirely.
- Translating word by word and stalling on one unknown compound; context and glosses usually cover it.
- Missing negation inside prefixed verbs and adjectives: unzumutbar, keinesfalls, nicht zuletzt.