Verwijswoorden
Dit, dat, deze, die, hiermee: the words that hold a paragraph together.
A B2 text is judged on whether it holds together, and what holds it together is a chain of small words pointing backwards. Each one has to be unambiguous: the reader must know exactly which earlier thing dit refers to. Learners lose marks here in two ways at once — they repeat the full noun where a reference word belongs, which reads as heavy, or they use one where two possible antecedents are in play, which reads as unclear. The rules are the same de and het rules from A2, applied at paragraph distance.
How the exam tests this
Lezen most of all, because a reference question is a comprehension question in disguise: the item asks what dit points at, and the four options are four things mentioned in the paragraph. With roughly six texts to get through, following the chain is also what lets you read quickly without losing the thread. In Schrijven, the medium task is where it shows: a short text that repeats its own nouns reads as laboured, and one whose references are ambiguous reads as unclear — and both assessors are reading for coherence.
What is wrong with this sentence?
De gemeente heeft het plan aangepast. Dit is echter niet toegelicht.
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