## Why reps beat study

Reading is marked objectively: your answer is right or wrong, with no examiner judgement involved.
That makes it the most directly trainable part of the exam, and it means practice converts into
marks more reliably than anywhere else on the paper.

It also means the useful unit of practice is a question you got wrong and then understood, not a
page of grammar you read.

## The routine that works

1. **Answer a small set of exam-style questions.** Five or ten, not fifty.
2. **Mark them immediately.**
3. **Read why each wrong answer was wrong.** This is the step that does the work and the step
   people skip.
4. **Repeat tomorrow.**

Daily beats weekly by a wide margin. Material consolidates between sessions, and a twenty-minute
routine survives a bad week in a way that a scheduled three-hour block does not.

## Drill the recurring task types

The reading paper is built from a few repeating shapes: matching short messages to situations,
answering one question about a sign or notice, matching sentence beginnings to endings across a
personal description, and multiple choice on a short story.

Practise each until it is routine. Familiarity with the shape is worth marks entirely separately
from your Portuguese.

## Train the traps, not just the language

- **Negatives.** *Só*, *não*, *exceto* flip an answer, and they are where wrong options hide.
- **Keyword matching.** The wrong option usually repeats a word from the text. Match meaning.
- **Overthinking.** A2 texts are literal. An obvious answer is usually the answer.
- **Blanks.** There is no penalty for guessing, so never leave one.

## Then add the clock

Comprehension and speed are separate skills. Once the task types feel routine, sit timed practice
exams, because exam day should not be the first time you meet time pressure on this material.

Three real exam-style reading questions are free on our homepage, graded instantly, no account
needed.