Anchor on what cannot be paraphrased
- Names, places, dates and numbers survive paraphrase and are the fastest way in.
- Technical terms likewise, where the text has introduced one.
- Everything else will be reworded, so searching for the question's ordinary vocabulary wastes time.
Having found the place, read the sentence before and the sentence after. German often qualifies a statement in the following clause, and the qualification is frequently what the question is about.
The trap at B2 and above
A statement that the text reports somebody making is not a statement the text endorses. German marks this clearly — Subjunktiv I in reported speech, and verbs like *behaupten*, *meinen*, *angeblich* — and questions are built on the difference.
Wherever you see a reporting verb or the subjunctive, ask whose view you are reading. That one habit answers a large share of B2 and C1 questions.
Reading for detail — FAQs
2 questions
Usually, except on matching tasks. That makes a missed question recoverable.
In the exam there is no dictionary. Work from the structure and the words around it.
More lesen (reading) question types
Sources
Written from the test board's own published material and checked on 1 October 2026.