Prepare for the MVV exam A1 reading section

Reading is one of three components of the Basisexamen Inburgering. Naar Nederland states that the section contains 19 questions and lasts 35 minutes. Since May 2023, the exam program has tested functional reading: understanding short texts and answering multiple-choice questions about them.

The section is graded automatically, but the official result is issued within eight weeks as a grade from 1 to 10; a 6 or higher is sufficient. If you do not pass Reading, you can retake that component without repeating components you have already passed.

The published program describes six texts about work, education, and everyday life, with two or three questions per text. DUO’s current practice exam instead presents nine texts and 19 questions. Neither source establishes the real exam’s current text count. Unlike KNS, there is no fixed public text bank to memorise.

The texts are short and practical. Not literary or academic Dutch. The main challenge is reading under time pressure with limited vocabulary, not parsing complex sentence structures.

Read the question first. Is it asking about a time, a place, or something you need to do? Then scan the text for that specific detail. You don’t need to translate every word to answer a question correctly.

Watch for small words like niet (not), voor (before), and vanaf (from). A shop that opens vanaf ten o’clock is still closed at nine. A single small word can be the difference between two answer options.

In the demo above, the class starts at 19:30. The text also mentions 17:00, but that’s the deadline to email ahead if you can’t attend. Don’t just pick a time you recognise in the text — check what that time actually refers to.

Still missing a lot of vocabulary? Build up your A1 vocabulary. Words about work, school, transport, and appointments come up constantly in everyday reading texts.