Sources and method
Sources and methodology
This page says where every number on the site comes from, what is not here, where the material may be wrong and what changes after 1 January 2027. We are not asking you to take anything on trust.
The legal basis
The certificate examination is governed by two legal acts:
- The Act of 7 October 1999 on the Polish Language (consolidated text: Journal of Laws, Dz.U. 2026 poz. 81), chapter 2a. It is this act that creates the State Commission for the Certification of Proficiency in Polish as a Foreign Language and says who issues the certificate.
- The Regulation of the Minister of Science and Higher Education of 14 February 2025 on examinations in Polish as a foreign language (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 217), in force since 22 February 2025. It describes how the exam is run, the times, the scoring and the pass conditions. Annex 1 to this regulation contains the requirement standards and is the only official source for the scope of the content.
Watch out for a mistake that keeps being repeated. Most language schools, some universities and almost every guide online still quote the regulation of 26 February 2016. It is out of date. This site quotes Dz.U. 2025 poz. 217 only, and once that is repealed it will quote the act that replaces it.
What we take straight from the regulation
| Provision | What follows from it |
|---|---|
| § 14 ust. 1 | maximum time for the written part: 190 minutes at B1, 250 minutes at B2 and C1 |
| § 14 ust. 2 | the time for a single module is set by the Commission on the exam paper, not by the regulation |
| § 16 ust. 1 pkt 3 | break between modules: at least ten minutes |
| § 17 ust. 2 | oral part: up to 15 minutes at B1 and B2, up to 20 minutes at C1 |
| § 21 | the requirement standards = Annex 1 |
| § 23 | pass condition: B1 at least 50% in each module of the written part and in the oral part, B2 and C1 at least 60% in each module and in the oral part |
| § 25 | the result within 3 days of the report, access to your paper on a request made within 21 days |
| § 27 | the certificate within 30 days |
The most important sentence on this site follows from § 23: points from the modules are not added up. There is no average and no making up for one module with another.
A separate rule applies to the group adapted to the needs of children and young people: there, at every level, 50% of the whole written part and 50% of the oral part is enough, so the modules are added up after all. This is a common mistake in guides that carry this rule over to adults.
How we know the format of the tasks
The regulation does not describe what a single task looks like. We know that from the sample papers published by the Commission for levels B1, B2 and C1 (the 2017, 2019 and 2020 editions) together with the transcripts and answer keys. They are the source of the numbers that appear in no legal act:
| Module | B1 | B2 | C1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listening comprehension | 5 tasks, 30 min, 30 pts | 5 tasks, 40 min, 40 pts | 5 tasks, 40 min, 40 pts |
| Reading comprehension | 5 tasks, 40 min, 30 pts | 5 tasks, 60 min, 40 pts | 5 tasks, 60 min, 40 pts |
| Grammatical correctness | 8 tasks, 45 min, 30 pts | 8 tasks, 60 min, 40 pts | 7 tasks, 60 min, 40 pts |
| Writing | 75 min, 30 pts | 90 min, 40 pts | 90 min, 40 pts |
| Written part in total | 190 min, 120 pts | 250 min, 160 pts | 250 min, 160 pts |
The claim repeated online that "every module is worth 30 points" is true for B1 only. At B2 and C1 a module is worth 40 points. Because the Commission gives the module times on the exam paper, they may differ between sessions. Treat them as an order of magnitude for your training, not as a guarantee.
Copyright notice
The examination papers of the Commission are a work protected by copyright. They may not be copied or distributed, and a site that promises "real tasks from the exam" is either breaking the law or making things up.
We reproduce the format only: the type of task, the number of items in a task, the scoring and the way the instruction is worded. Not a single task, not a single reading text and not a single recording has been copied from a paper of the Commission. All the texts, tasks, distractors, explanations and recordings on this site were written by us.
The texts of legal acts are official materials and are not protected by copyright, so we quote them without restriction. The requirement standards in Annex 1 are part of the regulation and may be relied on.
How a task is made
- The topic. The starting point is a specific entry from the list of grammar topics or from the catalogue of subject areas in Annex 1, assigned to a level.
- The type of task. We choose the type the way the exam paper does at that level. This is not decoration, it is the heart of the matter: the share of closed tasks falls as the level rises. At B1 half of the grammar tasks are a choice of one of three forms, at B2 there are four such tasks, and at C1 not one. A site based only on ABC questions would reproduce B1 well, B2 by half and C1 not at all. That is why, alongside multiple choice, we have tasks with a word box, matching, transformations and writing in your own form, checked letter by letter.
- The explanation. Every item comes with a rule, not just the correct answer. The explanation links to a grammar article about that rule, so you can go from the mistake straight to its cause.
- Automatic checks. Before a task reaches the site it goes through a set of tests:
- morphological analysis of the correct form, so that the key does not contain a form that does not exist in Polish,
- language proofreading of the task and of the explanation,
- a check that the key is not the longest answer among the options. The correct answer is often written more carefully and at greater length than the wrong ones, and then the test can be solved by the rule "choose the longest one", with no knowledge of the language at all,
- shuffling the order of the options, so that the letter of the answer carries no information,
- deduplication within a section. Two identical tasks with different keys are not merged quietly but reported for review, because they mean that at least one of them is wrong.
- Human review. Tasks that the checks find doubtful, and a sample of the rest, go to editorial review before publication. On a site about correct Polish this is not a step you are allowed to skip.
We make the recordings for the listening module ourselves, from our own texts. We do not copy the recordings of the Commission. Some of the recordings are read by speech synthesis and we say so openly, because in the exam you will hear a recording made by a live speaker. Our recordings are meant to get you used to the pace, the length and the type of task, not to imitate the original.
How we mark the legal status
In the footer of every page there is the date on which we checked the legal status. We always describe the pass marks and the times together with their scope: they apply to examinations held up to 31 December 2026. The mock exam calculates the result according to the current pass marks and says so plainly on the result screen.
What changes from 1 January 2027
The Act of 30 April 2026 amending the Act on the Polish Language and the Act on NAWA (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 676) comes into force on 1 January 2027. On the same day the regulation Dz.U. 2025 poz. 217 is repealed. The new implementing regulation has not been issued yet.
Some of the changes already apply. Since 8 June 2026 new certificate levels apply to certificates issued without an examination: a doctoral degree gives C2, second cycle studies or long cycle master's studies give C1, first cycle studies give B2, a secondary school with Polish as the language of instruction gives B2, other forms of education give B1. All older guides give the values from before the amendment here.
From 1 January 2027 the following also changes:
- The age division. Instead of "adults" and "children and young people" what decides is your age on the day of the exam: from 16 years the levels A1-C2, below 16 years the levels A1-B2.
- The fee for the certificate and for a duplicate: 100 zloty. The 20 euro fee disappears. A duplicate may be applied for no later than 25 years after receiving the certificate.
- The exam fee calculated as a percentage of the average salary in the third quarter of the previous year: 6% for A1 and A2, 7% for B1 and B2, 9% for C1 and C2, 4% for people under 16. The amount for 2027 does not exist yet - it will be based on the announcement of the President of Statistics Poland (GUS) published in November 2026. We give no estimates, because any estimate would be guesswork.
- The names and the set of modules. The act introduces a catalogue of six possible modules of the written part. Today's "grammatical correctness" is called "the use of language structures" there. Which module applies at which level is to be set by the new regulation.
- Appeal against the marking. A new provision allows you to ask for your paper to be marked again within 21 days, for a fee equal to 20% of the exam fee. There is no such procedure today.
- Random checking of papers: at least 15%. Part of the trade press reported an increase "from 20% to 30%" - the text of the act says 15%.
- A report by the Commission by 30 January for the previous year. From 2027 there will therefore be a public source of pass rate data, which does not exist today.
The pass marks after 2026 are not known
We put this in a paragraph of its own, because it is the only thing on this page that we do not know and that everybody would like to know.
The 50% and 60% pass mark in each module lives today only in § 23 of the regulation Dz.U. 2025 poz. 217, which ceases to apply on 1 January 2027. We have checked the text of the amending act: the amended statute does not move that pass mark into the statute, and the authorisation to issue the new regulation does not list the conditions for passing the exam among the matters that the regulation is to govern. The act says only that the result is determined on the basis of the number of points and given as a percentage.
That is why no page on this site and no result screen claims what the pass marks will be after 31 December 2026. When the new regulation is published, we will describe it here and change the numbers in the mock exam. Until then, anyone who gives pass marks for 2027 is guessing.
What this site does not replace
- A conversation. The oral part is a conversation with an examiner. We teach strategy, vocabulary and how to build what you say, but speaking is learned by speaking, to a person.
- The marking of your writing. We show the text types, the word limits and the three marking criteria. No algorithm will award points for your text.
- Registration for the exam. Dates, centres and fees are handled by the Commission and by the institutions authorised to run the examination.
Known limitations
The material is produced largely by machine and checked by machine, so despite the controls it may contain mistakes: an ambiguous task, an explanation that goes wrong in its wording, a recording with odd intonation. The explanation and the rule are a pointer to where to look, not a ruling. In a disputed case what decides is the language norm described in dictionaries and grammars, not our opinion about it.
If you find a mistake, write to kontakt@polskicert.pl and give the address of the page. We correct it, and we add the finding to our checks so that the same mistake does not come back with the next batch of material.
Legal status as of 2026-09-02.