Prøve i Dansk 3 (PD3): the complete guide

Prøve i Dansk 3, usually called PD3, is the Danish exam at level B2. It is the one you need for citizenship, it counts towards permanent residence, and it is the exam that ends module 5 of Danskuddannelse 3. This is what is in it, how it is graded, and how I prepare my students for it.

Why PD3 matters

Three reasons, and they explain why the exam halls are full:

• Danish citizenship (indfødsret) requires a passed PD3, plus the separate citizenship test about Danish society. A lower exam does not do.
• Permanent residence only requires Prøve i Dansk 2, but PD3 is one of the supplementary requirements you can use to get it faster. See which test you need for residence and citizenship.
• Family reunification: a passed PD3 replaces the A1 and A2 tests.

It is also, simply, the level where Danish starts to be comfortable. A B2 speaker can hold a meeting, argue a point and read the newspaper.

The written exam

The written exam takes about four hours and has three parts. You do the reading first, then the writing.

Reading 1: scanning (25 minutes)

You get a booklet of about ten pages, adverts, timetables, short articles, and fifteen questions that each have a short answer: a name, a number, a word. You are not meant to read the booklet; you are meant to find things in it. Twenty-five minutes for fifteen questions is fast, so the skill is knowing where to look.

Reading 2 and 3: understanding (65 minutes)

• 2A: a text of about a page and a half, with three questions, each with three possible answers.
• 2B: a text of about two and a half pages where five paragraphs have been taken out. You get seven paragraphs and put five of them back in the right places. Two are not used.
• 3: a cloze text with eight gaps. For each gap you choose between four words.

2B is the part my students fear most and the one that improves fastest with practice, because it is about the logic of a text: what a paragraph refers back to, and what it sets up.

Writing (2½ hours)

• Task 1: an informal email to a friend who has asked you four questions. Answer all four. There is no word limit.
• Task 2: a text of at least 200 words. You choose between A, where you describe a diagram, explain the causes behind it and discuss it, and B, where you get a statement and write about your own experience, comment on it and discuss it.

You get one grade for the whole writing part. In the writing part you may bring dictionaries. In the reading parts you may not.

You can take both reading parts and the writing part as a free practice test, at full length and with the same clocks. The reading is scored in points like the real exam.

The oral exam

The oral exam is individual, with an examiner and a censor, and has two parts of about five minutes each.

Part 1: a prepared presentation and an interview

Five working days before the exam, the language centre gives you a topic. You do not choose it yourself. The topics are the society topics from module 5: work culture, the environment, democracy and citizenship, lifelong learning, and so on. You prepare a presentation of about two minutes and may bring one sheet with a plan and keywords. After the presentation, the examiner asks questions. According to the official guidance, they come in four kinds: clarifying questions (Hvad mener du med …?), questions that ask you to go deeper, questions that ask for your reasoning, and questions that ask you to take a position.

Part 2: an unprepared topic

You get a new topic with two pictures and two set questions: one concrete question about the pictures, and one broader question about the topic. No preparation time. This is where the examiners see how you speak when you cannot rehearse.

The oral part is in the free practice test too: a presentation on a topic you are given, with the examiner’s questions read aloud when you tap, and a topic you draw with two pictures. You can record yourself and listen afterwards.

How the grades work

You get three grades on the 7-point scale (7-trinsskalaen: −3, 00, 02, 4, 7, 10, 12), one for reading, one for writing and one for the oral. The oral grade counts twice, and you pass when the average is at least 2.0:

(reading + writing + oral × 2) ÷ 4 ≥ 2.0

So an oral grade of 4 gives you room for a 02 elsewhere, and a strong oral can carry a weak reading. That is one reason to spend so much of the preparation on speaking. You can try the numbers in the grade calculator in the free course.

When it is held, and how you sign up

PD3 is held twice a year, with the written part in May and November and the oral parts in the weeks around it. You sign up through a language centre (sprogcenter), also if you study on your own. The registration deadline is months before the exam date, and people who are not enrolled pay a fee. The dates and the fee are on danskogproever.dk, the official site, and they change from year to year, so check there rather than trusting a blog post.

How to prepare for PD3

1. Speak about module 5 topics every week. Not “tell me about your weekend”, but “what would you say if the examiner asked why Danes trust their institutions?”. Practise the four question types until they stop surprising you.
2. Build the two-minute presentation as a skeleton, not a script. An opening line, three points with a reason each, and a closing line. Learn the skeleton, then fill it with any topic. A memorised text falls apart at the first question.
3. Practise 2B with the logic, not the guessing. For every missing paragraph, find the word in the text that the paragraph must connect to: derfor, alligevel, det, a name that has to be introduced first.
4. Write task 2 with the same three moves every time. Describe (what does the diagram show, or what does the statement say), explain (why is it like that), discuss (what do you think, and what could someone else think). Two hundred words is not a lot when you have a structure.
5. Do the reading against the clock. Twenty-five minutes for fifteen answers is a pace, and pace is learned by doing it, not by reading about it.

The free course has all of this in module 5: five prepared presentations with examiner questions in the four kinds, unprepared topics with pictures, reading sets in the exam’s formats, writing tasks with diagrams, and the Danish history from module 5. You can see it in the module 5 guide.

Questions people ask

Is PD3 hard?

It is a B2 exam, so yes, it is a real exam. Most people who go through Danskuddannelse 3 pass it at the end of module 5. The people who fail usually fail on time in the reading or on the oral, not on grammar.

Can I take PD3 without going to a language school?

Yes. You sign up through a language centre as a self-study candidate (selvstuderende) and pay the fee.

What is the difference between PD2 and PD3?

PD2 is B1 and is the requirement for permanent residence. PD3 is B2 and is the requirement for citizenship. The formats are similar, but PD3 texts are longer and the writing task asks you to discuss, not just describe.

Can I retake it?

Yes, at the next exam period. There is no limit on attempts, but you pay the fee each time if you are not enrolled.