What is the Polish state certificate exam?
The State Certificate Examination in Polish as a Foreign Language is Poland’s official test of Polish language proficiency. It is run by the State Commission for the Certification of Proficiency in Polish as a Foreign Language, the state body set up for the purpose, and the first examinations were held in 2004 under legislation passed the year before.
It is a language certification rather than a recruitment test. You sit it to obtain a state certificate at a stated level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and the certificate does not expire. Foreign nationals and Polish citizens permanently resident abroad may take it. The Commission issues the certificate within 30 days of receiving the examination report.
There are two versions. The version for adults is for candidates who have turned 18 by the day of the examination. A separate version is written for children and adolescents aged 14 to 17, with the subject matter of the texts and the task types adapted to them.
If you are sitting the exam because a Polish authority has asked for evidence of your Polish, check what that authority actually requires before you book a level. On citizenship in particular the Commission does not set the rule, and directs applicants to the provincial office handling their application.
Which levels are available?
Adults can take the examination at any of the six CEFR levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. The version for 14 to 17 year olds runs from A1 to B2.
The levels are not stages you work through in order. You register for the single level you want certified, and you either reach the standard set for it or you do not, so choosing the right level is a real decision rather than a formality. The level you need is set by whoever asked you for the certificate, not by the Commission, so establish that first and register for it directly.
What is in the exam and how is it marked?
Every level has the same two parts: a written part made up of four modules, and an oral part.
The four written modules are:
- Listening comprehension. Recordings are played once or twice and you complete tasks on what you hear.
- Reading comprehension. The texts range from single sentences through paragraphs to longer passages.
- Grammatical correctness. Some tasks ask you to identify and mark the correct form, others ask you to produce it and write it down.
- Written expression. You choose one of the sets of tasks and write the texts as instructed.
The oral part is taken in front of an examination board. You draw one set of material, textual and pictorial, and build a spoken response from it.
Timings differ by level. For adults at B1 the written part runs up to 190 minutes and the oral part takes around 15 minutes. At B2 the written part runs up to 250 minutes with an oral part of around 15 minutes, and at C1 the written part is again up to 250 minutes with an oral part of around 20 minutes.
The pass marks
This is the part candidates most often misread, and it is where preparation should be aimed.
For adults at B1 you need at least 50% in each module of the written part and 50% in the oral part. For adults at B2, C1 and C2 the threshold rises to at least 60% in each module of the written part and 60% in the oral part.
Read that as a per-module rule, because it is one. A strong reading score does not rescue a weak grammar module: each module has to clear the bar on its own. The version for 14 to 17 year olds is marked differently, requiring 50% across the written part as a whole rather than module by module.
How to prepare for the Polish state certificate exam
Because the threshold applies to every module separately, the most useful thing you can do is find your weakest module early and give it more time than feels proportionate. Candidates tend to prepare by reading and listening, which are the two modules that improve on their own, and then lose the exam on grammatical correctness or written expression.
- Test each module in isolation. Sit one full timed module and score it against the 50% or 60% threshold for your level. An overall impression of how you are doing hides the single weakness that will fail you.
- Practice grammar productively, not just receptively. The grammar module asks you to supply forms as well as recognize them, and supplying a correct case ending is a much harder skill than picking one out of four.
- Write to the format. Written expression asks for particular text types from a set of tasks. Practice producing those to length and to time rather than writing freely.
- Rehearse the oral out loud. Speaking from drawn prompt material in front of a board is a different task from conversation. Work from pictures and short texts, and speak for the full time.
Working accurately against a clock is a skill in its own right, and it is the pressure the written modules apply. Our verbal reasoning tests and basic comprehension tests train reading carefully under time in English, and you can build the timed habit on our free aptitude tests before you take it back into Polish.
