Reading Exam Technique

Paper 3 measures how well you understand written Spanish, from short notices and adverts to articles, emails, blogs and messages. It is worth 50 marks and, like the other papers, splits into two sections.

Section	What it tests	Language you write in
A — comprehension	Understanding message, detail and opinion	English
B — translation	Rendering Spanish sentences into English	English

Feature	Foundation	Higher
Total marks	50	50
Section B (translation)	10	10
Timing	45 minutes	1 hour

No dictionary is allowed. Up to a small proportion of unfamiliar words may appear, either glossed in English with an asterisk or designed to be worked out from context. Everything you write is in English, including the translation.

Section A recycles a predictable set of formats, so learning them lets you focus on the Spanish rather than the layout.

• Letter-matching — match each person or item to an option (A–F) and write the letter in the box.
• Multiple choice — choose A, B or C to complete a sentence about the text.
• Who said it — decide which named person (for example A, C or M) a statement fits.
• Short answers in English — write the key detail a question asks for.
• Time frame (P/N/F) — mark whether each event is past, now or future.
• Positive / negative opinion — write P, N or P+N for an opinion expressed.
• Headline matching — pair a description with the Spanish headline that fits it.

At Higher the texts are longer and lean more on inference: you weigh the whole passage rather than spotting a single word. Read each question before the text so you know what you are hunting for.

The most reliable method on this paper is to read each question, then search the text for the answer, rather than reading the whole text blindly.

• Transfer only what is asked. If a question wants two things Julia likes doing, give exactly two. Extra guesses can cancel a correct answer.
• Track the time frame. Past markers (el año pasado, fui), present markers and future markers (el año próximo, voy a) decide the P/N/F questions. A sentence like el año próximo esperamos visitar a mis abuelos is clearly future.
• Do not be fooled by a shared word. A distractor option often repeats a word from the text while stating something the text does not.

Watch out for negatives and qualifiers. No como mucha carne means the person does not eat much meat, and aunque (although) can turn a positive into a mixed opinion.

For English answers, the mark scheme rewards the key idea, not perfect phrasing. In a forest, in the woods and in a wood would all be accepted for the same point.

Because no dictionary is allowed, the paper deliberately includes words you may not know, and sometimes tests whether you can infer them.

• Glossed words are marked with an asterisk and translated in English beneath the text, for example *Francia – France. You do not need to guess these.
• Context questions ask what an unglossed word means. In a specimen text, students meet halcón in the phrase se puede ver muy alto en el cielo en las montañas del sur (can be seen very high in the sky in the mountains) and must decide it is a bird, not a place or a sport.

Use every clue: the surrounding words, cognates (contaminación looks like contamination), and the general topic. A word that appears with en el cielo and montañas is far more likely to be an animal than a sport. Trust the context the text gives you rather than panicking at an unfamiliar word.

Section B asks you to translate five sentences from Spanish into English, for a total of 10 marks. Each sentence is split into chunks, and you earn a mark for every chunk whose meaning is correctly conveyed.

Genuine specimen sentences show the level:

Spanish	Accepted English
Mi casa es bonita. Tiene un jardín grande.	My house is nice. It has a big garden.
Me encantan las películas aunque pueden ser tontas.	I love films although they can be silly.
Voy a estudiar idiomas en otro instituto.	I am going to study languages at another school.
Hace dos años lo pasamos bien cuando fuimos a Sudamérica.	Two years ago we had a good time when we went to South America.

Two habits protect your marks. First, translate the meaning, not word by word: me llevo bien con mis amigos is I get on well with my friends, not I carry myself well. Second, keep the tense: voy a estudiar is I am going to study (a version reading I study is rejected), and fuimos is a past, so we went, not we go.

1. Reading the whole text before the questions

Read the question first, then scan for the answer. Reading blindly wastes time and buries the detail you actually need.

2. Answering in Spanish

Section A and the translation are both written in English. Copying a Spanish phrase you half-understand rarely captures the key idea the mark scheme wants.

3. Panicking at an unknown word

If it has an asterisk, the meaning is given below. If not, infer it from the surrounding words and topic, exactly as the context questions expect.

4. Changing the tense in the translation

A verb rendered in the wrong tense loses its mark. Match past to past and future to future: fuimos is we went, voy a is I am going to.

5. Adding extra information the question did not ask for

When a question asks for two details, give two. Padding an answer with guesses can cancel out the part you got right.