French Practice Test: CEFR A1 to C2
A French practice test is useful only if it tells you something specific: which CEFR band you can actually work in, and which of the four written skills is holding you there. My Path's General French bank is built for that — about 576 signed-off items across vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing, from A1 through C2. It is not a conversation class, not an audio course, and not an official diploma. It is a CEFR-shaped practice sitting you can repeat until the pattern in your errors is obvious.
This article is the overview. If you already know you want grammar, reading, or vocabulary in isolation, jump to French grammar practice online, French reading practice by CEFR, or French vocabulary from A1 to C2. If you want a study loop rather than a product walkthrough, start with learning French with practice tests.
What "CEFR-shaped" means here
The Common European Framework of Reference describes language ability in six bands. A1 is survival French. C2 is near-native written control. Most people who say they are "intermediate" are mixing A2 reading with B1 vocabulary and A2 grammar, then wondering why a mixed quiz feels random. A practice test that dumps every band into one sitting will confirm that feeling and teach you nothing.
On My Path, Level is the axis for language tests — not school grade. You pick one CEFR band per sitting. If you tick several bands, the session still rolls one of them. Mixed pools are refused. That is the same rule as grade bands in maths, for the same reason: why bands matter in practice. An A2 item and a C1 item are not two difficulties of the same task. They are different tasks.
You can still move bands between sittings. The constraint is one sitting, one level, so the score means something.
The six bands, in plain language
Use this as a placement heuristic, not a diploma claim. Official exams have their own tasks, timings, and oral components. We do not.
| Band | What written French usually looks like | What a practice sitting is for |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Isolated words, set phrases, very short notices | Confirm you can decode the smallest units |
| A2 | Simple connected sentences about familiar topics | Find whether grammar or vocabulary collapses first |
| B1 | Straightforward texts on work, travel, study | Measure whether you can follow an argument, not just a sentence |
| B2 | Independent reading of articles and formal messages | Expose register, nuance, and longer-range grammar |
| C1 | Complex texts, implicit meaning, flexible style | Stress-test control, not "do I know this word" |
| C2 | Fine distinctions, almost no processing tax | Check residual gaps, not "am I a beginner" |
If you cannot place yourself, start one band below the label you want. An easy sitting that you finish with a clean error log is more useful than a heroic C1 session you skip through.
Four skills — and two we do not have
General French covers vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing. There is no listening and no speaking. That is a product limit, not an oversight. If your goal is oral fluency, you still need conversation and audio elsewhere. What this bank can do is make the written system visible: which forms you actually control, which texts you can parse, which lexical fields are thin.
Writing here means written production items in the bank — not an examiner marking a handwritten letter. Vocabulary and grammar are closed practice against CEFR-shaped items. Reading is comprehension at that band. The four skills share a level, so an A2 grammar sitting and an A2 reading sitting are comparable. A B2 vocabulary sitting is a different world.
Treat the four skills as four instruments, not one blended score. A 70% on a mixed 60-question paper hides a 90% vocabulary and a 40% grammar. Filter by skill when the hub lets you, or run skill-focused sessions and compare them yourself. The grammar, reading, and vocabulary articles unpack each one.
How a sitting actually runs
Education lives on the Education hub. General French sits on the Practice shelf with General English, General German, General Spanish, General Math, and Math Kangaroo. There is no live Exams shelf of named school-leaving papers. Practice is the product: drill the bank at your pace.
Before you start, you set:
- Size: 10, 20, or 60 questions. Default is 20.
- Timer: off, relaxed, or exam mode.
- Feedback: immediate, or review at the end.
- Navigation: free movement, or forward-only.
- Level: one CEFR band.
You can skip ("I don't know") and flag items for review. Use skip when you would otherwise guess. A guessed right answer pollutes the error log; a skip is honest.
A 10-question sitting is a temperature check. Twenty is the default working length. Sixty is for when you already know the band and want a denser sample. Do not jump to 60 with the timer on exam mode on day one. You will learn that you are tired, not where French breaks.
Immediate feedback is for learning. End-of-session review is for a cleaner measure. If you are diagnosing, prefer review-at-end so you do not change strategy mid-paper. If you are drilling a thin topic, immediate feedback is faster.
After the sitting: score is the start, not the product
When you finish, you get a score, counts of correct / wrong / skipped, and the usual retries: wrong items, flagged items, or a full retake. That retry loop is the point. One sitting tells you a snapshot. Three sittings on the same band, with retries on the misses, tell you whether the miss was a fluke or a hole.
Mastery is tracked per topic, with complexity levels 1–5. A topic master badge appears at 80% mastery. Streaks and other badges exist; they are not why you are here. The useful artefact is the topic bar: which fields are green and which are stuck.
AI gap analysis is available when your plan includes the Education entitlement and you have tokens for it. Use it after you have a real error sample — not after two lucky 10-question papers. The model can only comment on what you actually missed.
What this is not
My Path is not affiliated with DELF, DALF, or France Éducation international. A strong sitting on General French is practice against a CEFR-shaped bank. It is not a diploma, not a predicted exam grade, and not a substitute for an official centre. If you need an official certificate, you sit that exam with that body. Use this bank to find out whether your written French is in the band you think it is, then study the gaps.
Do not expect the items to clone any one official paper. CEFR is a shared scale; exam boards write their own tasks. We practise the scale. We do not impersonate a ministry.
Also: Education is not IQ, and it is not a personality test. Those live elsewhere on the platform. The Education on My Path overview draws that line if you arrived here from a career or cognitive article.
Who this sitting is for
It is for people who already have some French — including A1 — and want a structured way to practise written skills at a named level. Typical uses:
- You studied years ago and need an honest band, not a nostalgic one.
- You are preparing for an official exam and want extra written drill that is not the official paper.
- You are learning independently and need a closed bank instead of an infinite scroll of random quizzes.
- You already use General English, German, or Spanish on My Path and want the same grid in French.
It is a poor fit if you want pronunciation coaching, a tutor, or a listening exam. It is also a poor fit if you refuse to pick a level and want "all of French" in one go. That sitting does not exist here, on purpose.
Access: Student or Monthly, not the personality plans
Education is subscription-only. Unlimited Education sits on Student (premium_student) and Premium Monthly (premium_monthly). The For Me plan (premium_self) and Around Me (premium_around) include zero Education. Signing up does not open a grace period for French sittings.
| Plan | Price | Education |
|---|---|---|
| For Me | €4.99 / month | none |
| Student | €9.99 / month | unlimited |
| Around Me | €9.99 / month | none |
| Premium Monthly | €19.99 / month | unlimited |
GBP mirrors EUR (£4.99 / £9.99 / £19.99). PLN is zł24.99 / 49.99 / 99.99. Student has no trial. Monthly has a 7-day trial at €1.99. Student and Around Me cost the same and are alternatives, not a ladder: Student trades the Around Me people-tracking features for Education. Student still includes For Me personality tests. It does not include child profiles or priority support.
Sittings themselves are not sold per test. If Education is on your plan, General French is in the catalogue. Tokens meter AI features, not the right to start a practice sitting. Details live on plans and in the Student plan explainer. The Student CTA is simple: Get Student — €9.99/month.
A practical first week
Day 1: one 20-question sitting, your best-guess band, review at end, timer off. Do not change band mid-week.
Days 2–3: retry wrong and flagged. If the same structures keep failing, run a grammar sitting at the same level.
Day 4: a reading sitting at the same band. If reading is fine and grammar is not, you do not have a "French problem." You have a form problem.
Day 5: vocabulary if the reading misses were lexical. If they were syntax, skip vocab and stay on grammar.
Day 6–7: one more 20-question mixed or skill-filtered sitting at the same band. Only then consider moving up a level — and only if retries are no longer the same items in disguise.
That week will not make you C1. It will tell you whether A2 was vanity or a real floor.
How this sits next to the other language banks
The four language products share the same grid: four written skills, six CEFR levels, one band per sitting, roughly 576 items each (General English is about 577). French is not a thinner sibling. If you bounce between languages, keep the band honest per language. B2 English does not imply B2 French.
Maths on the same hub uses Grade, not Level. Do not look for a CEFR control on Kangaroo or General Math. The Education hub is one place with two different axes. Education on My Path is the map if you want the whole shelf, not just French.
Honest limits, again
About 576 items sounds large until you have sat sixty-question papers for a month. You will see repeats. That is acceptable for practice; it is not an infinite corpus. When an item repeats, treat it as a delayed test of whether the correction stuck.
The bank cannot hear you. It cannot watch you speak. It cannot certify you. It can show you, at one CEFR band, which written skills you control today. That is a narrower claim than most "learn French online" pages make, and it is the claim worth paying for if you already know that vague apps are not moving the needle.
Start a sitting
Open Education, pick General French, choose one CEFR level, and run a 20-question paper with review at the end. If you need the plan that includes Education, compare Student and Monthly on plans. Get Student — €9.99/month — if you want unlimited Education without the Monthly token pile. Then practise the band you are actually in, not the one on your CV.