Passief
Worden plus a past participle: the thing happens and nobody has to be named.
Every official letter a B1 learner will ever receive is written in the passive, because the institution sending it does not want to name a person. Learners can usually recognise it and almost never produce it, and the two halves of the exam ask for both. The form itself is small: worden for what happens, is or zijn plus the participle for what has happened. The difficulty is that the subject of the Dutch sentence is the thing being done to, which feels backwards until it does not.
How the exam tests this
Both halves, in opposite directions. In Lezen the source texts are letters, notices and regulations, and those are written in the passive as a matter of course — a sentence like uw aanvraag wordt binnen zes weken behandeld carries the fact the question asks about, and reading it as though someone specific will do the handling changes what you think it says. In Schrijven the two partial tasks ask you to supplement a form or a short official text, and a passive line there is what makes the register match the document you were given.
What is wrong with this sentence?
Mijn aanvraag was op 3 maart ingediend.
Most candidates write it exactly like this and lose the mark without knowing why.
The rest of this lesson
The rule, the worked examples, the exceptions and what to do in the exam room open with Mastery, together with every other lesson for this exam.
See plans