The DELE B2 Oral Exam: Tasks, Timing and How It Is Actually Marked

The DELE B2 oral exam lasts 20 minutes and has three tasks: discussing a set of proposed solutions (at least four), creating a story based on a photograph, and giving your opinion on survey data, comparing your answers with those given in Spain. You get 20 minutes to prepare the first two. You are marked on four separate scales — coherence, fluency, correction and vocabulary — and that last point is why candidates who speak well still fail.

This guide sets out the format exactly, and then what nobody tells you: what we see go wrong, as an exam centre.

The format: three tasks in twenty minutes

Task 1 — Evaluate proposals and discuss them (6 to 7 minutes)

You are given a problem and a set of proposed solutions — at least four of them. You talk through the proposals, setting out the advantages and disadvantages of each one. This part is a monologue; when you have finished speaking, the examiner will ask you some questions about what you said.

This is the longest task and the one candidates underestimate. It is not enough to run through the options one by one: you have to weigh them against each other, justify the judgements you make, and then defend your position in the conversation that follows.

Task 2 — Create a story based on a photograph and discuss the situation (5 to 6 minutes)

You are shown a photograph and you build a story around it, guided by a set of questions — who the people are, what is happening, what might have happened before, what they might be thinking.

Note what this task asks for. It is not a list of objects in the picture. It is an imagined situation, which means hypothesis, speculation and inference. That is where the grammar, vocabulary and connectors you are being assessed on actually live.

Task 3 — Give your opinion on survey data (3 to 4 minutes)

An informal conversation based on written or graphic data — survey results, statistics, a short questionnaire. You comment on the data and give your own view, comparing your answers with the results of the same survey carried out in Spain.

You do not prepare this one. It comes at the end, after your preparation notes are no longer useful to you, and it is the most spontaneous of the three: you have to react on the spot, compare your own answers with the results given in Spain, and say what strikes you about them.

The twenty minutes of preparation

Before the exam you get 20 minutes, alone, to prepare Tasks 1 and 2 only. You can take notes and write an outline, and you may consult it during the test.

Two things to know about that time:

It is not enough to write a script. Candidates who try end up reading, which is audible, and which costs marks on fluency. Notes should be prompts, not sentences.

It is barely enough if you have never done it before. Twenty minutes is comfortable once you have practised the format and know what to put on the page. The first time, it disappears.

How the oral is actually marked

This is the part most candidates have never seen, and it changes how you should prepare.

The three tasks do not carry equal weight. Tasks 1 and 2 are worth 30% each, and Task 3 is worth 40%. The shortest task, and the only one you cannot prepare for, counts for more than either of the others.

Your performance is assessed on an analytic scale with four separate categories:

The full scales, with the descriptors for each band, are in the official DELE B2 exam guide published by the Instituto Cervantes. It is worth reading the scales for your level before you prepare anything else.

Why candidates who speak well still fail

Here is the single most useful thing we can tell you, and it comes from what we see as an exam centre.

A candidate can speak confidently, without hesitating, and be understood perfectly — and still not pass. Because fluency is one scale out of four.

The pattern we see repeatedly is a candidate speaking fluently at an A2 level. The conversation flows, the examiner understands everything, nothing breaks down. But the language is narrow: simple structures, everyday vocabulary, no subjunctive anywhere. That performance scores well on fluency and badly on vocabulary, and the overall result is not a pass at B2.

This is counter-intuitive, and it is why so many candidates are surprised by their result. They judged themselves by whether they communicated. The exam is not asking whether you communicated. It is asking whether you communicated at B2.

The five things we see go wrong

From candidates who sit the exam with us:

1. Basic errors that survive because communication still works. Gender agreement, verb endings, prepositions. They do not stop the examiner understanding you, so nobody corrected them for years, and they are marked under correction.
2. A narrow vocabulary. The same handful of verbs and adjectives throughout all three tasks. Bueno, malo, importante, hacer, tener. Understandable, and well below the level.
3. No subjunctive. This is the clearest single marker. B2 content includes the subjunctive in context — opinion, doubt, hypothesis, value judgement — and Task 2, which asks you to speculate about a photograph, is practically built to elicit it. Candidates who avoid it give the examiner a performance that reads as B1.
4. No connectors, so no coherence. Sentences that are individually fine, delivered one after another with nothing joining them. Coherence is its own scale, and connectors are the most visible evidence of it.
5. Fluent, but at the wrong level. Covered above, and the one that most often produces an unexpected result.

Notice that four of these five are not about speaking badly. They are about speaking at a level below the one being assessed.

Does the format itself catch people out?

Only if they have not prepared for it.

Candidates who have worked through the format — with a course, or at minimum with official preparation books — are not surprised on the day. They know there are three tasks, they know Task 3 has no preparation, they know how to use the 20 minutes.

Candidates who prepared their Spanish but not the exam are the ones who find the format disorienting. That is an avoidable problem, and it is entirely separate from how good their Spanish is.

How to prepare for the DELE B2 oral

Read the assessment scales first. They are in the official guide linked above. Knowing that vocabulary and coherence are marked separately changes what you practise.

Practise with a timer, including the 20 minutes. Preparation is a skill of its own. Learn what you can realistically get down on paper in that time.

Deliberately use what you are avoiding. If you never use the subjunctive, build it into your practice answers until it stops being a decision. The same goes for connectors.

Speak to a person, not to yourself. Solo practice builds fluency, not interaction — we go into that in detail here — and it is the gap we see most often in self-taught candidates. For the methods that do work alone between sessions, see how to practise speaking Spanish.

Get a mock oral marked against the real scales. Not “was that good?” but “which band would each of the four scales fall into, and why?” That is a different question and it produces a different answer.

Check you are at the level at all. If you are not sure, our guide to the Spanish language levels sets out what B2 actually means. Preparing the oral will not move you from B1 to B2 — that is a longer job, and it is covered in how to prepare for the DELE exam.

If you are not sure B2 is your level yet, the B1 oral has a different format and a lower threshold.

Preparing with an official exam centre

Hispanic Horizons is an official DELE exam centre in Mumbai, and our DELE preparation courses are taught by certified DELE examiners.

For the oral in particular, that matters more than for any other paper. Someone who applies the official scales can tell you which band your performance sits in and what specifically would move it up — which is not something you can work out alone, and not something a textbook can do for you.

Courses run online as well as in person. Exam dates and registration details are on our DELE exams page.

Frequently asked questions

How long is the DELE B2 oral exam?

Twenty minutes in total, across three tasks, plus 20 minutes of preparation beforehand for the first two tasks.

Can I take notes into the DELE B2 oral?

Yes. During the 20 minutes of preparation you may take notes and write an outline for Tasks 1 and 2, and you may consult them during the exam. Reading from them is a bad idea — it costs marks on fluency.

What is the hardest task in the DELE B2 oral?

Candidates usually find Task 1 hardest, because it is the longest and requires sustained argument. But Task 3 catches more people out, because it is the only one with no preparation time and it carries the most weight, at 40% of the oral exam.

Do I need the subjunctive to pass the DELE B2 oral?

In practice, yes. The subjunctive is part of B2 content, and the tasks are designed to create opportunities for it. A candidate who avoids it throughout is likely to be marked down on correction, whatever their fluency.

Can I fail the oral and still pass the DELE B2?

The oral is grouped with the listening paper for scoring, and that group needs a minimum of 30 out of 50. A weak oral can be partly compensated by a strong listening paper, but not indefinitely — and a strong reading and writing paper cannot help at all, because they are in the other group.

Is the DELE B2 oral the same as the C1 or B1 oral?

No. The number of tasks, the timing and what each task asks of you change by level. Preparing with B1 materials for a B2 exam is a common and expensive mistake.

Sit the exam with people who mark it

If you are preparing for the DELE B2, the oral is where preparation makes the clearest difference — and where feedback from someone who applies the official scales is hardest to replace.

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