B1 Speaking oefenexamen simulator

What the Speaking exam asks of you

Sixteen tasks in two parts: eight short (20s) responses, then eight longer (30s) responses built on pictures and short scenarios. Spoken into a microphone, not to a live person. At B1 you get 16 questions in 35 minutes. The Staatsexamen NT2 passes at a scaled score of 500, set per sitting rather than a fixed percentage. The most recently published cesuur (lowest passing raw score) for this part was 75 out of 128. Every paper above runs that whole section end to end under its real time limit, so the first time you meet the pressure is not the day it counts.

What comes up

• Short instructions & requests
• Opinions & reactions
• Single-picture descriptions
• Three-picture sequence storytelling
• Reasoned arguments
• Formal vs informal register

Three things that save marks

• Use your full response time. A token answer costs you real points even if it's grammatically correct.
• The three-picture tasks want one connected story, not three separate descriptions. Link them with 'eerst', 'daarna', 'uiteindelijk'.
• Match your register to the task: 'je' vs 'u' is graded, not just vocabulary.