Detailvraag

219 of our 291 B1 reading items are detail questions, and the paper is weighted the same way. What changes from A2 is not the question but the text: at B1 the fact is usually not in one sentence. It is stated in one place and qualified in the next, and the option that matches the first half is wrong.

About 35–36 multiple-choice questions over roughly 6 texts in 110 minutes, computer-marked, and each question names a paragraph or an obvious anchor. The wrong options are built from the text: one takes a true statement and drops its qualification, one takes the right idea from the wrong paragraph, one is true of the writer's example rather than of the writer's point. None of them is invented, and none of them is refutable without going back to the line.

maar, echter, toch

The point is after this word, not before it. Options are built from before it.

vooral, meestal, doorgaans

A limited claim. An option saying altijd or iedereen has quietly removed the limit.

volgens X, X stelt dat

Attributed, not asserted. The question may ask what the writer thinks, not what X said.

bijvoorbeeld, zo

What follows is an illustration. An option made of the illustration answers a question nobody asked.

alleen, uitsluitend, behalve

A restriction that most options ignore. Find who or what is excluded.

• De gemeente vergoedt de cursus volledig. Wie het examen niet haalt, moet de helft terugbetalen.

  ✗Wie zakt, betaalt niets.

  Asked what a candidate who fails pays, the answer is half — and "volledig vergoed" is printed above it in the text. The first sentence is the setup for the option that is wrong.

• Volgens de onderzoeker werkt de aanpak goed. De schrijver plaatst daar vraagtekens bij.

  Two positions in two sentences. A question about the writer is answered by the second; a question about the researcher by the first. The options will offer both.

• Veel bedrijven werken inmiddels met flexibele uren, vooral in de dienstensector.

  ✗Flexibele uren komen in alle sectoren voor.

  vooral limits it to one sector. An option reading "in alle sectoren" uses every other word of this sentence and is still wrong.

• +Exception 1

  Not every detail question hides a qualification. Where a text states a plain figure or date, take it and move on — spending forty seconds hunting for a catch that is not there costs more marks across 36 questions than the occasional missed one.

• ✗Stopping at the sentence that contains the keyword. At B1 the qualification is usually in the next sentence, and it is what the question is about.
• ✗Picking the option with the strongest wording. Options containing altijd, iedereen or nooit are usually the text with its limits removed.
• ✗Attributing a quoted opinion to the writer. Volgens X is not the writer speaking, and at least one option every text depends on that confusion.
• ✗Re-reading whole paragraphs. With 110 minutes over 6 texts there is time to read a text once properly and then answer from located lines — not to read each text three times.