Can You Pass A1-Start Deutsch 1 Exam in 45 Days?

The answer is Yesss!!!! This is the story of how to pass it without joining any course, it will be a self-paced study from zero nero to minimal understand when German people are talking and give them a response.

The Background

Before I decided to have self-paced study to take an A1 exam, I had looked for any information on any courses for A1 preparation for a person with no knowledge of this language, which means we never learned it before. It wouldn’t be possible to pass the A1 exam in 45 days, in all of their replies. Okay, so I had to do it by myself, and this was what I heard the first time when Germans were talking was like Ghj%&%&&%&^gjg%^%#@@gjhgjh and sounded I only heard iicchhhh acchh uucchh ☹️. It will be though because I have never taken this exam, my friends (Annie and Dewi) convinced me, that it will be easy (for them ahahah).

Study Materials

Online Reading

I downloaded some online reading, but the most I read and effectively improved my learning progress are :

1. https://www.goethe.de/ins/id/id/sta/jak/prf/gzsd1/ueb.html (Available in Bahasa Indonesia). There are some model tests of the A1 exam you can download here, including Hören (Listening), Lesen (Reading), Schreiben (Writing), and Sprechen (Speaking). You will know how the test will be by reading the examples and how to put the answer in the answer sheet. I printed the pdf and used it to practice.
2. https://www.traingerman.com/en/tips-for-learning-german-material-collection/ (Available in English). There are 12 PDF chapters you can download under Taster lesson A1. Honestly, I only could finish 6 chapters until the exam day :D, but the grammar materials were really good to understand. It provided the answers and vocabulary list in every chapter. I also printed the PDFs that will make it easy for me to read and make a note on the papers.
3. https://ifu-institut.at/en/online-lernen/prufungsvorbereitung/prufungsvorbereitung-a1/schreiben/deutsche-brief-a1 (Available in English). It gives us examples of how to write a letter based on a certain topic. It was really useful to know the various pattern that may be asked in the A1 exam.

Book

My husband bought me a book from a bookstore:

Actually, I opened it only 4–5 times (sorry babe, but I couldn’t understand at all the first time I read it 😂). This book pointed out exercises and practices for leveling questions (easy, medium, hard) based on grammar. And I didn’t have enough knowledge at that time for German grammar.

Mobile Applications

I searched and tried several mobile applications:

1. Mondly (Paid)

I paid Mondly for a month only, it provides features of listening, reading, writing, and speaking. But after two weeks I was bored 😐 using this app. In my opinion, I thought it had a monotonous flow for each topic that I had to complete, but overall it covered A1 topics. So if you like to complete all topics will be good.

2. DWLearn German (Free)

DWLearn German had several topics to learn for A1 and video of Nicos Weg. 1 thing, this app can not evaluate your progress to do speaking

3. Duolingo (Free)

This app I use till now. It offers features like a game: buy gems, XP challenges, Daily challenges, and rewards, etc. So to learn a language with Duolingo feels like you are playing the game, so much fun 🤩.

Youtube Videos

I found some youtube video channels as below:

1. Deutsch lernen mit der DW (Nicos Weg)

I watched Nico’s story when he arrived in Germany from Spain, lost his bag, and how Nico has improved his german language a lot from A1 to B2 just within several hours 😅. I turned on the subtitles to understand the conversation well. This is my favorite movie that I like to watch often.

2. Labinot Dreshaj and Grenzenlosci

This channel has several playlists grouped by the topics of the A1 test of Hören, Lesen, and Sprechen with answers at the end.

How to Manage The Study

I am a mother of two kids and a full-time worker, so if I have a chance to join any course, it won’t be after office hours, mostly the course will be held in office hours for 4–8 hours per day which I can’t join. 1st week was a struggling time for me because I hadn’t found yet what was the best way for me to learn German fast, very stressful because I wanted to learn everything but actually I knew nothing 😅. I didn’t have much time for study since I had 9 — 17.30 office hours so I made my schedule to study within the below timeline:

Daily

1. 7–9 am

I focused on mobile applications and step by step improved my level for Lesen, Hören, Schreiben, and Sprechen. My husband helped me to prepare breakfast and accompanied the kids to do online school, so I had much time in the morning to study. Thank youuu.

2. 1–2 pm (this is my lunchtime 😭)

I watched the model test for the A1 test on youtube videos at the same time I ate my lunch (mostly from channel Labinot Dreshaj and Grenzenlosci). We ordered or went outside for lunch, no time to cook really -_-

3. 10 pm-12 am

I watched youtube videos and turned on the subtitles (Most of the time was Nicos Weg). Okay, I needed a quiet time to watch those videos and understood what the actors were talking about, and I only could do it after the kids were 😴.

Weekend

I studied for about 3 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday and took seriously read the online readings. Practiced to write the german words and sentences, tried to relate those words to English will be easier because it has closely pronounced words to German.

Preparation for Exam

I stopped studying after 45 days. I registered to join an A1 online preparation exam course in Wisma Jerman Surabaya for 3 days (3 hours per day). Since the course was held during office hours, I could only attend about 30 mins — 60 mins 😢 in a break time. But the teacher (miss Yana) helped me a lot to examine my tasks after office hours and weekends and gave me feedback. Danke Schön miss Yana 😘😘.

The Exam Day and Result

I did the A1 exam in Wisma Jerman Surabaya (https://wisma-jerman.or.id) since Goethe Institut was unavailable in Malang and Surabaya. Any inquiries to Wisma Jerman will be one by email, just need to be patient to get a reply from them since there might be a lot of people wanted to join the course or exam.

I didn’t expect a good score for the Hören section, yeaa 45 days to hear all those conversations were like mm .. mm. But if you have more time to listen to more conversations then do it, it will improve the vocabulary and familiar with fast conversations. I asked my mom and husband to pray for me after effort then prays .. hope everything would go smoothly.

And after 1 week the result was posted on Wisma Jerman’s website. I was quite surprised that I could pass the test with a good score, Alhamdulillah. As I expected, my Hören score was not really good, got the best score for Schreiben and Sprechen 😇. Hope this will help you out there to prepare for the A1-Start Deutsch 1 Exam!