I passed Swedex and have the level C1 for Swedish. (TL)
I wanted to write this post since I haven’t really seen many posts for Swedex (or any Swedish exams for that matter) I was searching myself for such posts but didn’t find much.
Firstly, since there are not many Reddit posts I can explain what Swedex is;
There are 2 different Swedex exams; one that covers the levels A2/B1 and B2/C1. Basically if you pass you can receive either level depending on your results. But your worst result determines your level so if you get C1 in reading writing and speaking but B2 in listening, your level is listed as B2.
There is also the Tisus exam which I believe is just the C1 level, but it is just for being able to study at Swedish universities in Swedish which I have no plans to do. I chose Swedex because it emphasises everyday language more and because you can repeat a part in a „restprov” (remainder exam). Swedex has 4 parts; listening, writing, speaking and reading.
To be fair Swedex has an uncertain future: It is supposed to be abolished at the end of the year which was also the reason I chose to do it now. I haven’t had much contact with Swedish the past few years but i figured it was a matter of do it now or never do it. I don’t need the certificate for anything in particular, I just wanted to prove my ability. The examiner did say however that she thinks the exam’s lifespan will be extended. She said the original plan was to replace Swedex with a new exam but they are way behind with that plan and she thinks Swedex might stay around for longer as a result.
So my exams: reading and listening are marked out of 35. To get the B2 level you need 20 points, for C1 you need 25. Speaking and writing are a bit more subjective I understand but are graded according to fluency, correctness and communicative ability.
Reading:
I had 35 questions. They started off with quite simple texts and multiple choice questions from 1-16 It was the first part of the test we did and it was a good way to get into the zone. Then you get one longer text that you answer multiple choice questions on (16-29) and finally a short answer section all based on this longer text. The first part of this is just multiple choice on conclusions you can draw from the text. The second part is based on phrases used in the text for which you get asked questions as to what they actually mean. I think this is the hardest part since I didn’t know any of those phrases although I could make an educated guess as to what they meant. The very last short answer part can seem daunting and it’s probably designed to but I thought it was quite easy to find the answers in the text. For me, it was quite clear that the start of the exam is designed to be easy and more the B1 level with a sort of gradually increasing difficulty up to C1.
Listening: I will be honest. I had to repeat the listening part because I had a very bad result the first time. So I’ll talk about both.
So you get 7 multiple choice questions on very short conversations, then 4 questions where you hear a sort of presentation and have to choose out of 6 categories which fits best (2 are not used at all). Then there is the section where you hear a dialog of a meeting where there are 6 short answers questions. From what I can tell there is always 1 question about an amount ie 185,000 Swedish crowns, 1 involving a spelling of a company or phone number (where correct spelling is compulsory) and 1 question about when the next meeting will be. The next questions (11 of them) are a more scientific text where you have to fill the gaps based on what you hear. It’s definitely the hardest part since you have to not only figure out what they said but also spell it correctly. Ie: utmaning (challenge) with 1 n but bemanning (staffing) with 2 ns. I found this part quite difficult since to me Swedish is not the most phonetic language. You really have to know the word to spell it right and cannot guess. Thankfully you hear this part twice so you can check your answers and fill the gaps. The last section is a presentation in short answer format.
Attempt 1: I found it way harder than the model test that’s on their website. The practice test has a question where you spell a construction company “Kronkvist” where it is actively spelled out. In the test I took it was a phone number instead and super fast. I also got caught out on the word dygn (which refers to a 24 hour period while dag refers to a day). I thought it was some sort of dialect but I was wrong. I found the scientific text very difficult since it was about different types of cancer and that’s a high level topic to me.
Attempt 2: This is when I passed at the C1 level and I found it roughly in line with the practice test. I felt like I knew almost everything and only made mistakes in spelling in that scientific text bit. This time it was about converting salt water to drinking water.
Summary: My tips having done it twice is that it does matter which “exam” you get. One I thought was super hard and the second time it was okay. But you deal with the cards you’re dealt with. One thing I learnt was; don’t assume you missed the answer to a question because it hasn’t come yet. I had this in attempt 1 where I thought I had missed it and had moved on but the text was longer than I thought. If it’s a specific number or spelling wait for it, it will come even if the test throws in irrelevant information in between.
I found this much harder than the other listening exam I did which was for German; the Goethe Certificate C2. The texts were more advanced given the C2 level but that one was all multiple choice while Swedex tests your spelling and ability to write down answers quickly.
Writing:
This is quite simple. You have to write a text of about 350-400 words (or the provided 2-3 pages). You are given a very broad topic and you can take it in any direction you want. We got the topic “Språk”
(Language). So I wrote basically about which languages people should learn and about whether it makes sense to talk about “useful” languages or not. Writing is generally my weakest link in foreign languages because I tend to learn the grammar last and in writing it shows the most. But I also prepared the most. My strategy was to compensate for my weaker grammar by memorising and using more complex grammatical structures such as varken eller (neither nor) or med andra ord (with different words). I really felt the topic helped a lot since I could write quite a bit about this.
Speaking:
Generally you do this part in pairs but we were 3 people doing the exam so I ended up on my own with the examiner while the other 2 were paired up. You are given a topic and asked to present your views on it with a short presentation of 2-3 minutes. Afterwards there is a discussion where you are asked some questions about what you said. Afterwards you are given a completely different topic to discuss with your partner or in my case the examiner. For me I presented on “consumption” and spoke about music for the other topic.
Other thoughts: To me it seemed like writing and speaking were more of a either or (B2 or C1) and that you wouldn’t fail either section unless what you delivered was so hard to understand that it couldn’t be graded. For reading and listening it’s graded with points so quite transparent.
Overall here is how I did:
Reading 28/35: C1
Listening: Attempt 1: 13/35 (no grade/fail) , Attempt
2: 27/35: C1
Writing: C1
Speaking: C1
On the first test day I got the results for reading and listening straight away since they are easy to mark. The examiner said I was C1 for speaking but it was possible that the people in Sweden would say I was more B2.
When I repeated the listening exam I also got the result a few minutes after.
I would add here that I find the materials to prepare for the test quite limited. There is only one practice exam and as I said I found the listening part to be much more difficult the first time. I ended up using AI to generate listening texts for me to practice on and using Elevanlabs text to speech (which I 100% recommend as natural sounding Swedish albeit with limited credits on the free version).
So what would interest me is who has done Swedex too or is considering doing it this year (while it still exists). I know there is also a Swedish exam in Finland but I know almost nothing about it.
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