TEF IRN reading comprehension: 20 questions, 30 minutes, a test that adapts to you

The official format: 20 questions, 30 minutes, two parts

Reading comprehension opens the day. It has 20 questions and lasts 30 minutes, i.e. one and a half minutes per question on average. It is taken on a computer, and it is divided into two parts of fifteen minutes each, as published by our certifier, Le français des affaires: CCI Paris Île-de-France.

The questions are multiple-choice questions with four options, only one of which is correct. The marking is simple and has a direct consequence: a correct answer is worth one point, a wrong answer and no answer are worth zero. So there is never any point in leaving a question blank: guessing costs nothing and gives you a one-in-four chance.

A test that adapts: why the first part counts double

This is the feature that almost no candidate knows about before their exam, and it changes the strategy. The first part determines the calibration of the second — if your early answers place your level low, the second part will give you easier questions, and you will no longer have the chance to show the level you really have.

Second consequence, more technical: navigation is free within each part, but you cannot go back from one part to the other. The fifteen minutes of part 1 are sealed off. Time saved in part 1 does not carry over to part 2.

What you are really asked to read

The paper assesses, according to the certifier’s official presentation, your “ability to read and understand written documents”. In practice, these are not literary texts: they are the kinds of writing you come across in everyday life in France.

• Short, functional texts — a small ad, a sign, a timetable, a message, an internal memo.
• Informative documents — a set of instructions, a set of rules, an official letter, an extract from a news website.
• Opinion texts, at the highest levels: a press article, a reader’s letter, a forum. There, you need to identify not the information but the point of view.

The four types of question

Whatever the document, the questions revolve around four operations. Recognising them saves time, because each one calls for a different reading technique:

1. 1Find a specific piece of information. A time, a price, a name, a date. You do not read the text: you scan it, looking for the data.
2. 2Understand the intention. “What does the author of this message want to do?” Here, it is the main verb and the form of address that give the answer, not the details.
3. 3Infer an unwritten meaning. “What can be concluded from…?” The answer is not in the text; it is inferred from two pieces of information that are.
4. 4Identify the meaning of a word in context. Not the dictionary meaning: the one the sentence imposes.

An example question, with commentary

The document. A notice posted in the entrance hall of a building:

The question. “Will a resident who works nights and comes home at 7 pm be able to use the lift on Tuesday 13?”

• A. No, the lift is out of service all day on Tuesday.
• B. Yes, because 7 pm is outside the hours stated.
• C. Only if he informs the caretaker.
• D. It is not possible to tell from the notice.

What the question really tests

Not vocabulary: “lift”, “roof”, “caretaker” are common words. It tests your ability to cross-check two pieces of information: a range of dates and a range of hours, and to spot that the second sentence (“it will work normally outside these hours”) cancels out the first for 7 pm.

Note the trap in answer C: it is true in the text, but it answers a different question (the one about people with reduced mobility). This is the most common distractor mechanism in the whole paper: a correct statement, but off topic. When two answers both seem right, reread the question, not the text.

The method: 90 seconds per question, in this order

Thirty minutes for twenty questions leaves one and a half minutes per question. That is only comfortable if you do not read anything twice. The sequence that keeps to time:

1. 1Read the question first (10 seconds). You will then know what you are looking for, and you will find it by reading once instead of twice.
2. 2Identify the type of operation (5 seconds): specific information, intention, inference, or meaning of a word. This decides how you read the rest.
3. 3Read the document (30 to 50 seconds), scanning if you are looking for a piece of data, in full if you are looking for an intention.
4. 4Eliminate two options (15 seconds). There are almost always two answers that are clearly wrong. Crossing them out mentally doubles your chances before you even choose.
5. 5Decide and move on (10 seconds). If you hesitate for more than fifteen seconds, tick the most likely answer and note the number: free navigation within the part will let you come back to it if there is time left.

The three mistakes that cost the most

• Getting stuck on a question. Three minutes on a hard question means two easy questions lost further on. The marking does not weight difficulty: each question is worth one point.
• Looking up the unknown word. You have no dictionary, and in nine cases out of ten the answer does not depend on that word. Keep going: the context almost always defines it.
• Leaving a box empty. Zero points for no answer, zero points for a mistake: the arithmetic is clear-cut.

Practising usefully, and checking where you stand

Reading comprehension is the only paper that improves with daily reading rather than exercises. Twenty minutes a day on real French texts are worth more than two hours of grammar on Sundays:

• Read what you will actually read. Letters from your family allowance office, notices in your building, the administration’s information pages. That is exactly the register of the paper.
• Time yourself. One text, one and a half minutes, one question you ask yourself. It is the time pressure that you learn, more than the vocabulary.
• See the interface beforehand. The official TEF IRN tutorial reproduces the real screen: the buttons, the timer, how to confirm. Open it once on a computer.

This paper’s score is given on a scale of 0 to 499 points, like the other three, and the official level scale places A2 from 200, B1 from 300 and B2 from 400. Our page on results explains the tolerance applied to the weakest paper.