DELF B2 listening: 20 questions across three recordings
B2 listening runs for half an hour, and it is the one paper where the clock belongs to the recording rather than to you. Three exercises, five documents, twenty questions, every one of them a three-option QCM. Two of the recordings are played twice. The third exercise plays each of its documents once, and most candidates find that out in the room.
Updated 2 September 2026
Thirty minutes, three exercises, twenty questions
| Exercise | Documents | Questions | Question format | Plays | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO-Ex1 | 1 audio document | 7 | Multiple choice, three options | 2 | 9 |
| CO-Ex2 | 1 audio document | 7 | Multiple choice, three options | 2 | 9 |
| CO-Ex3 | 3 audio documents | 6 | Multiple choice, three options | 1 | 7 |
| Total | 30 min | 20 | 25 |
Source · the official DELF B2 tout public format.
What B2 listening asks you to understand
The CEFR puts B2 listening at extended speech and lectures: you can follow a complex line of argument, provided the topic is reasonably familiar. That is the standard the paper is built on, and it explains what the questions do not ask. None of them turns on catching one rare word.
The recordings are broadcast French, not classroom French. An interview or a report, then a debate or an interview, then three short extracts one after another. The speakers talk at their own pace and nobody repeats themselves for you. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of a news programme, and the subjects are public ones, the kind you can hold an opinion about without being a specialist.
So what the paper measures is whether you can hold an argument in your head while it is still being made. A question can ask what a speaker concedes, or which position a second speaker is arguing against. What the B2 level covers sets out the descriptor in full.
Where the 25 points actually sit
The three exercises are not worth the same, and neither are the questions inside them. The first two carry eighteen of the twenty-five points between them, so the two long recordings decide most of the paper before the short extracts even start.
Inside an exercise the weights move too. The heaviest question in the table below is worth five times the lightest, and nothing in the room tells you which one you are answering. A question you settle in two seconds can pay more than three you fight for.
These weights feed the two thresholds printed under the table. Listening is the paper where a bad half hour is hardest to repair. There is no draft to improve, no second read, and for one exercise no second play.
| Exercise | Points | What each question is worth |
|---|---|---|
| CO-Ex1 | 9 | 1 · 0.5 · 2 · 1.5 · 0.5 · 2.5 · 1 |
| CO-Ex2 | 9 | 0.5 · 1 · 1 · 1.5 · 1.5 · 1 · 2.5 |
| CO-Ex3 | 7 | 0.5 · 1 · 1.5 · 2 · 1.5 · 0.5 |
| Total | 25 |
Pass mark: 50 out of 100 across the four papers.
Section floor: under 5 out of 25 in any one paper and the whole exam is failed.
Source · the official DELF B2 tout public format.
One recording, two questions, and the reasoning
Excerpt
Cécile : La loi oblige toutes les entreprises de plus de cinquante salariés à mettre en place un canal de signalement interne. Un employé qui constate une fraude, une violation grave de la loi ou un danger pour la santé publique peut signaler les faits sans risquer des représailles. La loi leur garantit une protection contre le licenciement ou la discrimination.
1. Quelle obligation la loi Sapin II impose-t-elle aux entreprises de plus de cinquante salariés ?
- A Instaurer un dispositif interne permettant aux employés de signaler des faits problématiques.
- B Publier annuellement un rapport de transparence fiscale.
- C Nommer un responsable éthique indépendant du conseil d'administration.
2. Quelle protection la loi garantit-elle aux lanceurs d'alerte ?
- A Une garantie qui protège l'employé contre un renvoi ou un traitement inéquitable de la part de son employeur.
- B Une indemnisation financière automatique en cas de pression.
- C Un droit à la mutation dans un autre établissement de l'entreprise.
Answer +
Excerpt from a practice document written for this site, in the format of exercise 1.
Neither key repeats the words of the recording. The lawyer says the law obliges companies to set up an internal reporting channel, and the right option calls it a mechanism that lets employees report problems. She says protection against dismissal and discrimination, and the right option says protection against being fired or treated unfairly. That reformulation is the exercise. A candidate listening for a matching phrase will not find one.
The wrong options are built on the opposite principle. They stay inside the subject and name things that sound like they belong: an annual transparency report, automatic compensation, a transfer to another site. None of them is said. The test for an option is not whether it is plausible, it is whether you actually heard it, and in the third exercise you get one pass to decide.
A workable minute plan for the paper
Official timing
- CO-Ex1 · Played twice9 points
- CO-Ex2 · Played twice9 points
- CO-Ex3 · Played once7 points
Source · the official DELF B2 tout public format.
A workable split
- CO-Ex19 min
- CO-Ex29 min
- CO-Ex37 min
- Checking your answers5 min
One split that works. It is our arithmetic rather than an official figure, and the free lesson below proposes another.
Practising DELF B2 listening before the exam
Listening improves on volume, not on technique, as long as the volume is the right kind. Half an hour of French radio a day beats one long weekly session of textbook audio, because textbook audio is recorded to be understood and radio is not.
Then work in the units the exam uses. One long recording, its seven questions, two plays and stop: that is a session. B2 listening practice runs on the same formats and the same weights as the paper, so a score there means something.
- 1Sit one timed paper before you revise anything. The score tells you whether listening is the paper closest to the floor. Start a full B2 mock.
- 2Open every practice session with the third exercise. It is the one that plays once, and it trains the habit the other two let you postpone.
- 3Read the options first, then listen. A hypothesis formed in advance turns the second play into a check instead of a first pass.
- 4After each wrong answer, find the sentence you misheard in the transcript and say out loud why the wrong option looked right. A mistake you cannot explain comes back.
- 5Work one genre a week: an interview, then a debate, then a report. The free lesson on radio genres gives you the shapes to listen for.
Start with the free lesson on radio genres
Free lesson · study guide
Reading the radio: genres and domains
Name the format, the field and the theme before you chase a single detail. Three fast reads that secure the opening questions of the CO paper.
Listening questions, answered
Do you hear the B2 recordings twice?+
Not all of them. Exercises 1 and 2 play their recording twice. Exercise 3 plays each of its three short documents once only. At A1, A2 and B1 every recording is played twice, so this is the one single-play exercise in the tout public format.
Are all 20 listening questions worth the same?+
No. The weights run from 0.5 to 2.5, so the heaviest question on the paper is worth five times the lightest. Two candidates with the same number of correct answers can finish several marks apart, depending on which ones they got.
What kind of recordings are used?+
Broadcast material. The first exercise takes an interview or a report, the second a debate or an interview, and the third three short extracts played back to back. This is the tout public version of the exam, so the subjects are general ones rather than school or workplace ones.
How long is each recording?+
The two long documents run to about three minutes each, and the short extracts of the third exercise to a minute or so. Treat those lengths as approximate. What the official format fixes is the number of documents and the number of plays, not a running time.
Keep reading
The other B2 pages
Ready to find your B2 level?
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