DELF B1: practice tests, the mock exam, and the pass mark

What the DELF B1 exam asks of you on the day

The exam day comes in two halves. The first is collective: listening, reading and writing, in that order, for an hour and fifty-five minutes in all. The second is the oral, taken alone in front of two examiners at the time printed on your convocation, which can be another day. The free lesson that maps the B1 exam lists what to bring and how the oral unfolds.

Two formats of the listening and reading papers are in circulation, and the candidate manual that France Éducation international published in July 2026 still says so. This site prepares the all-multiple-choice one, which has been coming into sessions since 2020. In it, listening is three recordings: a conversation, then two radio documents, each played twice, with three-option questions. Reading opens with a grid, not with a text to study. Four short documents are checked against the same four criteria, yes or no each time. Two longer texts follow, with multiple-choice questions and true or false statements that need no justification. The other format keeps some written answers, and its reading paper has two exercises, not three. Writing is one text of 160 words minimum, in which you give an opinion and support it with examples.

Speaking has three parts: a guided interview about you, a role play with the examiner, then a point of view defended from a short document. Only that last part is prepared, for ten minutes, before you walk in. None of this calls for brilliant French. B1 expects familiar topics, clear standard language, and an opinion with its reasons attached.

That is the shape the practice on this site follows. Each paper has its own page further down, with practice tests in the format of the exam, built for self-study. Listening and reading are marked automatically. Writing and speaking come back with a score and written feedback. Start a full B1 mock to sit the four papers in order, against the clock. Or begin on paper with the free sample paper, which has every answer explained. All of it is written for this site, to the official format: none of it is a past exam paper.

Four papers and their timings, in one table

The pass mark, and the score that fails you anyway

Each paper is marked out of 25 points, and the four marks are added together. Half of the total is enough. That rule is generous: you can be weak in one paper and still pass, as long as the other three carry the sum.

The second rule takes that comfort away. A paper under 5/25 fails the whole exam, whatever the other three add up to. The figures below work one case through: a total above the pass mark, one paper under the floor, no diploma. Writing shows how the floor can be missed without bad French: a text under half the required length scores zero on every criterion.

So measure before you revise. One timed mock exam shows where your lowest mark is, and how far it stands from the floor. That paper is where your exam preparation starts. To see how the marking works before a full sitting, try the free demo. A writing or speaking score on this site is an estimate from an AI grader working with the official grids. It is not an examiner’s mark, and for speaking it is the number to trust least.

Residence card, studies, work: what B1 is used for

In France, the clearest use is the carte de résident, the ten-year residence permit. Since 1 January 2026, B1 is the level of French required for a first one. The DELF B1 certifies that level, and the diploma does not expire: nothing to renew while a file waits. Service-Public, the French administration’s official site, names the DELF among the accepted diplomas. It also says who is exempt, starting with applicants over sixty-five, so read its page before you book. What B1 level means in practice places this step on the ladder that starts at A2 for a first multi-year permit.

Studies and work call for more caution. For university entry, France Éducation international points to the DELF B2, and more and more often to the DALF C1, not to B1. Each institution sets its own condition, so ask the one you are applying to. At work, B1 fits a role where French is not the main skill. That describes the level: it is not a requirement we can quote for any employer.

Naturalisation is where older advice goes wrong. For many years B1 was the level asked for French citizenship, and plenty of pages still say so. Since 1 January 2026 the requirement is B2, in spoken and in written French. A DELF B1 diploma no longer meets it for an application filed after that date, whenever it was issued. If citizenship is the goal, B1 is a stage, not the finish. The level now required for French citizenship has the detail.

From A2 to B1: what the exam adds

Between A2 and B1 the scoring does not move: four papers, the same marks, the same two thresholds. The differences sit in the tasks. Writing is the plainest case. A2 asks for two short texts of sixty words each. B1 asks for one text of 160 words minimum, in the same forty-five minutes.

The oral nearly doubles in length. Its preparation time stays where it was: ten minutes at both levels. What changes is what those minutes cover. At A2 they serve the second and third parts. At B1 they serve the third part alone, so the role play is improvised. That third part is also new in kind: a point of view argued from a short press text you draw, where the A2 oral hands you a subject card and no text.

In the all-multiple-choice format, reading gains a quarter of an hour and loses an exercise: three instead of four. It no longer opens with a matching task but with the yes or no grid, followed by two longer texts. Listening keeps its twenty-five minutes and its two plays, but the material is rebuilt. A2 spreads fourteen short recordings over four exercises, with pictures to choose from and a matching task. B1 keeps to three recordings, one per exercise, all with written three-option questions. Unsure which of the two levels to book? The free level test places you in about ten minutes.

DELF B1 practice tests, paper by paper

• CO · Listening
• CE · Reading
• PE · Writing
• PO · Speaking

Free B1 sample paper with the answers explained

DELF B1 questions, before you register