I hold the Γ' and Δ' certificates, which means I have sat in that room under that clock. That experience changed how I prepare students, because the gap between knowing Greek and passing a Greek exam is wider than most candidates expect — and it is a gap you can close deliberately.
What follows is the shape of the thing. For the current official format, dates and fees, always check the Centre for the Greek Language directly, since details change between sittings.
Four sections, four different problems
Listening
Played twice, at natural speed, with no pauses arranged for your convenience. The recordings are not the slowed, over-articulated audio in most coursebooks, and that is the single biggest shock for candidates who prepared only with course material.
What helps: practising with authentic audio months before the exam. Radio, podcasts, television with the subtitles off. You are training your ear to tolerate speed and accent, which no amount of grammar revision does for you.
Reading
Long texts, short clock. The content is rarely beyond a well-prepared candidate; the time pressure frequently is. People read every word of the first passage carefully, then rush the last two.
What helps: skimming and scanning as trained techniques. Read the questions first, find what they point at, then read closely only where it matters. This feels wrong to careful readers and it is the difference between finishing and not.
Writing
This is the most learnable section, because it is marked against criteria. Structure, register, connectives and task completion earn predictable marks. A well-organised text with modest vocabulary outscores an ambitious one that wanders.
What helps: drilling the formats until they are automatic — the formal letter, the argumentative piece, the report. And reading the task twice, because a beautifully written answer to the wrong question scores close to nothing.
Speaking
The section candidates under-prepare most, on the assumption that speaking is either there or it isn't. It is also the one where rehearsal pays off fastest, because the task types repeat.
What helps: practising the actual task types out loud, with someone who interrupts and asks follow-up questions. Not reciting prepared monologues, which examiners hear all day and mark accordingly.
Where marks actually go missing
- Misread instructions. Every sitting, every level. The instruction says "two reasons" and the answer gives one, brilliantly.
- Time spent on the first question. Marks are not weighted towards the beginning. Budget the clock before you start writing.
- Register mismatch. Writing to a public authority in the tone you would use with a friend costs marks even when every sentence is correct.
- Blank answers. There is no penalty for a wrong guess. An empty box is a guaranteed zero; a guess is not.
- Sitting the wrong level. The most expensive mistake of all, and the easiest to avoid with an honest diagnostic beforehand.
How long do you need?
It depends on the gap between where you are and the level you want, and that gap is often not where students assume. This is why preparation should start with a diagnostic rather than a schedule: there is no useful generic answer to how many months it takes.
What I can say is that preparation works best when it runs backwards from the date. Pick the sitting, establish the honest starting point, then plan the weeks between. If the timeline does not fit the level, better to know in week one than in week twenty.
If you are preparing for a sitting, the exam preparation page explains how I structure the work — and the trial lesson is where we find out which level is realistically yours.