How do I prepare for the DELF B2 listening exam?

This surprises almost everyone I teach. In the official paper the listening questions are worth between 0.5 and 2.5 points each, so one question can be worth five times another. The marks are printed next to them, and hardly anybody looks.

The pattern is easy once you see it. The cheap questions ask for one fact. The expensive ones ask what a speaker concludes, or what the journalist really thinks. If you have two minutes left and two questions open, spend them on the opinion one.

Take a question from the official paper. It asks about the daily rhythm of professional athletes. The recording calls them "de gros dormeurs" who need more than nine hours. The correct answer is "ils dorment beaucoup", the same idea in plainer words, not the phrase you actually heard.

The wrong option, "ils se lèvent très tôt", uses words you really did hear a few seconds earlier, attached to a "non pas forcément". That one question is worth 2 points. Recognising a word is what loses them, so answer from the meaning and treat a familiar phrase as a warning.

Another question in that paper asks how the oldest employees react to a new office system. One option says they adapt even though they dislike it, which is a fair description of what you hear. The problem is that the recording says it about the young staff. The answer is the one about worrying for their future.

So whenever a question names a group, hold on to who it is, and write the name down if that helps. Half the traps in this exam are true sentences pinned on the wrong person.

The questions follow the recording from beginning to end, and that is your safety net. If you are still hunting for question 4 and you hear the answer to question 5, you have gone past it. Let it go and move forward, because staying behind costs you the next answer too.

The two long programmes are played twice, so a detail you miss the first time is not lost. The three short recordings at the end are played once. That is 7 points with no second chance, and they come when you are already tired.

Each short recording carries only two questions. Read them in the pause, decide what you are listening for, and answer while it is fresh. There is nothing to come back to.

At B2 the linking words carry the meaning, and they are not the ones you needed at B1. Train your ear on the ones that signal a turn: "certes" followed by "mais", which grants a point before knocking it down, and then "or", "en revanche", "cependant" and "en réalité".

When one of those lands, a speaker who has been agreeing is about to object. That turn is usually where the expensive question is hiding.

There are only a few official sample papers, so please do not spend them all in your first week. Build the ear on real French radio and reports, then use a paper to see where you stand. A round that works well:

Nobody hands you a transcript in the exam, so it is the last step and never the first.