Polish State Certificate B1 and B2: How to Prepare

In short: the Polish certificate exam tests listening, reading, grammar, writing and speaking. Read the Polish of daily life, review words every day, practise endings in context, and speak every week. Use the official sample tests to learn the format.

What the exam tests

The official name is państwowy egzamin certyfikatowy z języka polskiego jako obcego. It is run by a state commission, and exams take place in Poland and abroad, at several levels. Many people take B1, which is often needed when applying for Polish citizenship and for some residence permits. The required level may change, so check the current rules for your case.

At B1 and B2 the exam has five parts:

• Rozumienie ze słuchu (listening)
• Rozumienie tekstów pisanych (reading)
• Poprawność gramatyczna (grammar: choosing and writing correct forms)
• Pisanie (writing)
• Mówienie (speaking, with examiners)

Each part has its own pass mark, so you must pass every part, not just get a good total. The grammar part is where many learners struggle, because Polish changes the endings of nouns, adjectives and verbs.

Formats and rules change, so always check the current details on the official site, certyfikatpolski.pl. It has sample tests. Use them.

How many words?

There is no official word count for this exam, and sources count words in different ways. Teachers often quote rough figures for European languages: about 2,000–3,000 common words for B1 and about 3,000–4,000 for B2. In Polish each word has many forms, and you need to recognise them. So knowing a word means knowing how it changes.

Estimate Your Vocabulary (Settings → Languages) gives you a word count, not a level. It is a rough check, and it depends on where you stop scrolling. When it opens at first run, scroll to the point where the common words stop looking familiar, tap OK, and stop a little early rather than late: words marked as known get no translation.

What to read at each level

• Up to B1: graded readers (easy books written for learners) in Polish (buy or borrow them as EPUB or PDF and open them with Open a file), and short practical texts: notices, emails, adverts, forms. Just starting? See Start a New Language From Zero.
• B1 to B2: news on everyday topics: work, health, housing, transport, education, culture. If a news site has a news feed (RSS), add it in Feeds → Add Feed → Add URL.... You can also share a web page to pimReader from your browser.
• B2: longer articles and interviews where people give opinions. Modern stories and young-adult novels are good for longer reading.

Also read the Polish you live with: letters from offices, your rental agreement, work emails. Save them as a PDF or text file and open them with Open a file. A photo of a letter has no tappable words.

How many coloured words you see depends on the book. A graded reader or a modern text may have a few per paragraph; classics often have many more. If almost every line is full of colour, choose something easier.

A weekly plan (30–45 minutes a day)

Only 15 minutes a day? Do the reviews and the reading every day, and speak once a week.

Every day

1. 5 minutes: daily reviews: tap the Exercise card on Home. Tap Again, Hard, Good or Easy. Spaced repetition brings each word back when you're likely to start forgetting it.
2. 15 minutes: read one text. Tap a coloured word, tap its translation in the dictionary panel, and tick Memorize on the word's card. Keep 5–10 useful words a day.
3. 10 minutes: listen. Turn on read-aloud (in a book: ⋮ → Book ..., tick Play Audio:, choose Speech Synthesis). Listen once with the text, once without.

Three times a week (AI): grammar from your reading. When an ending surprises you, ask in Ask AI: "Why is it w sklepie and not w sklep?" For more practice, ask for a short course on one topic, for example the cases after prepositions. For each lesson, Create exercise book gives you exercises and Run quiz checks what you remember. No AI? Use a grammar book with exercises for this slot.

Twice a week (AI): mówienie. Open Ask AI → Speaking practice and ask for exam-like tasks: "Ask me about my work and my town, at B1 level" or "Play an office clerk; I need to register my address." Use Train speech (select a paragraph → ⋮ → Train speech) on sentences with sounds you find hard, like sz, cz, ś and ć.

Once a week (AI): pisanie. Write one exam task, such as a letter, an email or a short text giving your opinion. Paste it into Ask AI with the criteria from the official sample test, and ask: "What would an examiner take points off for? Show a corrected version." Then write it again. This is a study aid, not an official mark.

Every two or three weeks: do one official sample test, timed, without the app. Give your weakest part more time next week.

Before the exam

Keep reviews going, add few new words, do timed sample tests, and learn the task instructions. See A 90-Day Plan for a B2 Language Exam for a longer structure, and Polish for Work for everyday work phrases.

What it won't do

• It has no official certificate papers. Use the samples on the official site.
• It won't give you points or a pass. AI feedback is a guide, not an exam result.
• It has no exam timer. Time yourself.
• It has no exam listening audio. Read-aloud uses a computer voice, and its quality depends on your phone.

Reading, translations, feeds, read-aloud with your phone's voice and daily reviews (the Exercise card on Home) are free; Ask AI, exercise books, Speaking practice, Train speech and writing feedback use AI, which is part of pimReader Plus. When you open an AI feature, pimReader offers Try free for a month: no card, no account, nothing renews. Tap Not now to carry on without AI.