The B1 listening exam at a glance
| Item | Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I Luisteren |
|---|---|
| Time | 90 minutes |
| Questions | About 40: 38 in 2023 and 2024, 39 in 2025 |
| Fragments | Five or more (5 to 7 in 2023–2025); the last one or more are short videos |
| Answer options | Three per question (A, B or C) |
| Reading time | 25 seconds per question, before its audio |
| Replay | None: you hear each piece once |
| Dictionary | Not allowed |
| Pass | Scaled score of 500; 26 correct in 2024 and 2025 |
What you listen to
In Luisteren you listen to Dutch about work, study and daily life. Most fragments are a conversation or interview between two people. One person often explains a job, a course or a task at work. The speech sounds natural: different voices, hesitations, repetitions and people correcting themselves.
The questions ask about meaning, not single words: the main point, a speaker's opinion, a reason, an instruction, a condition or a decision. A typical question looks like this:
You hear: "Goedemiddag, ik bel omdat ik graag wil weten wanneer de cursus begint."
Waarom belt zij?
A. om een afspraak te verzetten B. om informatie te vragen C. om een klacht in te dienen
(Why is she calling? To move an appointment, to ask for information, or to make a complaint.)
Answer: B. Some questions show three pictures instead of written options.
How a fragment runs: read, listen once, answer
This is the most important thing to know about the luisteren examen B1. You do not hear a whole fragment and then answer a block of questions. The conversation is cut into short pieces, one per question:
- You get 25 seconds to read the question and its three options.
- The next piece of the conversation plays by itself.
- You choose your answer.
Each fragment starts with a written screen that names the speakers and the situation, for example:
Een gesprek met een decaan van natuuropleidingen "U gaat luisteren naar een gesprek tussen Rob de Vrijer en Carlo Sabano. Rob de Vrijer werkt als decaan bij Helicon…"
(A conversation with a study adviser for nature courses.) Then the start of the conversation plays without a question. In the first fragment only, you also get one worked example with its answer before the scored questions begin.
The official instruction is short: "U kunt de tekst maar één keer beluisteren." (You can listen to the text only once.) You cannot pause or replay the audio. Before the exam starts, you do a sound check: you hear a tone, set the volume and confirm.
How the exam is built
The paper has five or more listening texts. The published papers had five fragments in 2024, six in 2025 and seven in 2023, with five to nine questions each. Longer fragments get more questions.
The last fragment, or the last two, is a short video. The official site says an exam has one to three short films. In the Facet exam player, numbered questions run along the bottom of the screen, with an information marker before each new fragment.
How Luisteren B1 is scored
Each correct answer is one raw point. Your raw score is then converted to a scaled score, and you pass with 500 or higher. The raw score you need can change from paper to paper:
- 2025: 26 of 39 points (scaled score 506)
- 2024: 26 of 38 points
- 2023: 24 of 38 points
So 500 is not a raw-score target, and no fixed percentage applies. A wrong answer costs nothing, so always choose an option. The correct answers are not spread evenly over A, B and C: in 2025, A was right far less often than B or C. Do not change an answer because one letter seems to come up too often. The cesuur guide explains the conversion in more detail.
How it differs from the A2 inburgeringsexamen
Staatsexamen NT2 Programma I is a separate B1 exam, not a harder version of the A2 listening exam. The day itself is different in five ways:
- Questions: B1 has about 40; A2 has 25.
- Time: B1 lasts 90 minutes; A2 lasts 45.
- Reading time: B1 gives a fixed 25 seconds before each question; A2 has no fixed reading window.
- Replay: B1 plays each piece once; at A2 you can play a fragment again.
- Options: B1 always has three; A2 has three or four.
The replay rule is the one candidates mix up most. The A2 listening exam guide explains the A2 format.
DUO handles registration and results for both exams. Passed Staatsexamen NT2 parts can count for the matching inburgering exams; check your own situation with DUO.
Luisteren B1 oefenen: where to practise
The best practice is the official Facet practice environment. It has published past exams in the same player as the real test. Copy the real rules when you practise: read in 25 seconds, listen once and answer at once. Replaying until every word is clear trains a skill you cannot use in the exam.
For extra practice, our B1 listening exams follow the same read-listen-answer loop. The NT2 listening example questions show more question types with answers.
