German A1 Placement Test for a New Class: a 40-Minute Procedure

A new German class often has students with different starting points. Some students had German in primary school. Some students start from zero. A placement test at the start of the year shows the teacher where each student stands. This guide gives a procedure for level A1 with a printable test.

What a placement test must show

A placement test for A1 answers one question: which A1 topics does the student already know? The test does not give a grade. The result is a starting point for the lesson plan.

For this task, the test needs four properties:

• The topics of the first year: greetings, numbers and the time, articles, present tense verbs and prepositions.
• Tasks in more than one format: vocabulary, gap fill, multiple choice, sentence writing and reading.
• Points for each part, so the teacher sees the weak part, not only the total.
• One work time for the whole class, for example 40 minutes.

An online level test with 20 multiple choice items shows the total, but not the weak part. A printable test with five parts shows both.

The procedure

Use this procedure in the first week of the school year:

1. Print the free Greetings Test 1 for each student. Remove the answer key page before you print.
2. Explain the five parts in two minutes. Show the example item of each part.
3. Give the students 40 minutes. Do not help with the tasks.
4. Correct the tests with the answer key. Write the points of each part on the first page.
5. Enter the points in the scoring table below.

The free test has three A4 pages. You do not need an account for the download.

The scoring table

The test has 100 points. Use this table as a working rule for the first lesson plan. The bands are a classroom rule, not a certified scale.

Total points	Reading of the result	Next step
0 to 39	The student starts from zero or near zero.	Start with greetings and the alphabet.
40 to 69	The student knows the words, but makes errors in sein, heißen and word order.	Start with greetings, but move fast to numbers and the time.
70 to 100	The student knows the first topic.	Give the test of a later topic, for example rooms and prepositions.

Look at the points of each part, not only at the total. A student with 25 of 30 points in reading and 5 of 20 points in sentence writing reads well and writes little. This student needs writing tasks, not more reading.

Placement for students above the first topic

If a student gets 70 points or more in the greetings test, give a second test from the end of A1. The topic "rooms, furniture and prepositions" tests the dative after in, auf, unter, neben and an. A student who gets 70 points or more in this test is at the end of A1.

The second test is part of the German A1 Unit Tests set. The set has five topics of the first year, three versions of each test and the answer keys. It is one payment, with no subscription. The 15 PDF files come to your email address immediately.

After the placement

Keep the corrected tests. At the end of the first topic, give Version 2 of the same test. The difference between the two scores shows the progress of each student. The three versions have the same parts and the same points, so the two scores are comparable.

For the review lesson before each class test, use the free topic pages. Each page has the word list, the multiple choice questions of Test 2 and a reading text, with the answers. Start with greetings and introductions.