What does “colar na prova” mean in Brazil?

Verdades e mentiras em desafio divertido

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A2 Portuguese listening practice · Brazilian Portuguese · Curated for beginners

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colar na prova
Brazilian Portuguese school slang
“to cheat on a test”; literally “to glue on the test”

Colar means “to glue” or “to stick.” In Brazilian school slang, colar na prova means to cheat on a test, and a cola is a cheat sheet. Quem já colou na prova? is “who’s ever cheated on a test?” An easy way to remember it: picture notes glued to your hand or your desk.

In Portugal you’ll hear copiar (“to copy”) or cabular, and a cheat sheet is a cábula. Colar has other slang uses in Brazil too: não colou means “that excuse didn’t work.” In this game, telling the truth is worth R$20, não vale mentir (“no lying allowed”), before the questions move on to faking sick to get picked up early.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Portuguese listening practice listening practice?

96.7%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Portuguese words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Portuguese.

General Portuguese frequency

90%
Top 1,000
96.7%
Top 2,000
98.3%
Top 5,000

Spoken Portuguese frequency

100%
Top 1,000
100%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

colou
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
fingiu
1×
Top 5,000
fingiu que estava doente
1×
pretended to be sick for attention

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-PT-BR 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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