Luisteren: nuance
A question about how strongly the speaker means something — the limit, the hedge or the partial concession, not just the claim.
34 of our 626 B2 listening items. The question asks where the speaker draws the line: "Welke slag om de arm houdt Damen bij zijn conclusie?", "Welke nuance brengt de spreker aan …?", "Hoe verandert het standpunt van Bos in de loop van het debat?". You already know what the speaker thinks; now you need to know how far it goes. B2 speakers limit their claims out loud — ik zeg niet dat … ik zeg dat, of het leek in elk geval, misschien, ik geef toe dat — and the correct option keeps exactly that limit. The wrong ones make the speaker more certain, less certain, or doubtful about the wrong thing.
How the exam tests this
Luisteren II: about 40 multiple-choice questions over five or more fragments in 90 minutes, computer-marked, and each fragment plays once. In our bank, 8 of the 34 nuance items are the last question on their fragment, and none is the first — the hedge usually comes after the claim it limits. The wrong options turn a partial shift into a full reversal or into no change at all, or attach the speaker's caution to a different point, such as doubting the facts when the speaker only limited their scope.
What is wrong with this sentence?
Dat de vondsten mogelijk vals zijn
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