In this article
- The official DELF B2 practice tests, and how many there are
- Prep books with full mock exams
- Before you start: two dates and one diagnostic
- An example 10 to 12 week plan built around mocks
- How to mark a practice test yourself
- What your mock results should change
- Common questions about DELF B2 practice tests
- Your first step
Checked against France Education International’s pages in October 2026.
If you have booked the DELF B2, or are about to, the official supply of practice tests is smaller than you probably expect. France Education International (FEI), which designs the DELF, publishes two full written sample papers for the DELF B2 tout public, one for each of the two listening and reading formats used in sessions, and one speaking sample. The written papers come with answer keys, and their listening parts come with audio and transcripts, all in French.
They are on FEI’s sample papers page. Use the first one, Exemple 1, as a timed diagnostic now, and keep the second, Exemple 2, for your final timed mock one to two weeks before the exam. Prep books supply the mocks in between, and FEI’s grids are what you mark your writing and speaking against. The plan in this guide is built backward from two dates, your exam and your center’s registration deadline, so you will need both before you sit anything.
This guide covers the DELF B2 tout public as it stood in October 2026. The format paper by paper, the marking grids and the registration steps are in the DELF B2 guide, and if you are still deciding between this exam and the TCF, the DELF vs TCF comparison comes first.
The official DELF B2 practice tests, and how many there are
FEI uses two formats for the listening and reading papers in official sessions. They differ in the number of exercises, the length of the documents and the form of the questions, and FEI states that neither format puts candidates at an advantage or a disadvantage. You do not know in advance which one you will get, and that is why the two sample papers matter so much. Exemple 1 follows format 1, with three exercises in each comprehension paper, and Exemple 2 follows format 2, with two.
| Resource | What it contains | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| FEI sample papers page, Exemple 1 (format 1) | Candidate paper, correction key, listening transcript, MP3 audio per exercise and in full | Your diagnostic |
| Same page, Exemple 2 (format 2) | The same set for the other format | Your final timed mock |
| Same page, speaking sample | Candidate document and examiner document | A recorded mock oral |
| Same page, grids | Writing and speaking grids, performance descriptors, an explanation of each criterion for candidates | Marking your writing and speaking |
| FEI preparation page | Advice per paper, a model exercise per paper, listening audio, the word-count rule | Short practice and timing habits |
| RFI and FEI listening sessions | Seven sessions of three exercises, each with a vocabulary list, answer key and transcript | Weekly listening practice |
| Center training tests | Listening and reading in exam conditions, marked by FEI, results within 7 days | An outside-marked mock, if your center runs one |
| Candidate manual, July 2026 | The exam explained, advice per paper, links to official resources | Reading once before you start |
| FEI resource list, October 2025 | Publishers’ training books and platforms | Finding books, with ISBNs checked on the publishers’ own pages, because some in the list are wrong |
FEI’s preparation page says that markers use the correction key and the grids from the sample papers page, so that is the standard to hold your own marking to. It also gives a rule you need before your first timed essay. A word is a set of characters separated by a space, so j’ai counts as one word and so does rendez-vous.
The RFI sessions are published by RFI’s Français facile with FEI, and the seventh came out on 24 August 2026, which makes 21 listening exercises with keys on top of the papers. Each session has three exercises, like the format 1 listening paper, although the match was not checked exercise by exercise for this guide.
Center training tests are the closest thing to a real session you can sit before the day, because the center applies the same supervision and paper confidentiality as in an official session. The B2 test lasts 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours and gives you a result per paper but no diploma, and each center sets its own dates, so ask yours whether it runs them at all.
Past papers and re-hosted copies
FEI publishes sample papers, and real session papers are not published. If you find a file labeled “DELF B2 past paper”, compare it with FEI’s page before you use it. Some copies online sit next to format notes that no longer match FEI’s July 2026 manual, and some date from 2013 with no audio, while FEI’s page gives you the current version with its key and audio.
Prep books with full mock exams
Two official papers are not enough for a plan with several timed mocks, so the middle of your preparation will come from books. The ones below were checked on their publishers’ pages in October 2026 and are grouped by need, not ranked.
If you need more full mocks
- ABC DELF B2, 3rd edition (CLE International, May 2025) has three full mock exams, 200 activities split evenly across the four skills, online audio and an interactive digital version, and it is adapted to the current exam and grids.
- Le DELF B2 100% réussite (Didier, édition 2021-2022) has four complete papers in the official format of the nouvelles épreuves, two printed in the book and two interactive on the companion site, with answer keys and transcripts.
If you want one book that works through the exam by theme
- Les clés du DELF B2 (Maison des Langues, hybrid new edition) has five thematic units with vocabulary, grammar and exam keys, MP3 files and twelve months of access to the publisher’s online platform.
- Le Delf pour les nuls B2 (CLE International and First, August 2025) comes with downloadable audio.
- Hachette’s DELF tout public B2, nouveau format d’épreuves (July 2022) has free audio and video downloads on its companion site.
The number of full mocks in these three was not confirmed for this guide, so check the contents before you buy one of them for mocks.
If one paper is your problem
PUG publishes three books aimed at single papers: Préparer le DELF B1 & B2, Production écrite (November 2024, updated for the latest grids, with answer keys usable on your own), Production orale (June 2024, with simulation videos online) and Préparer le DELF B2, a method book for the listening and reading papers (February 2021). According to the publisher, two of the authors work as pedagogical engineers at FEI.
Where a publisher showed a list price in October 2026, it ran from €18.50 to €27.90.
The two FEI papers plus ABC DELF B2 and 100% réussite give you up to nine full mocks of the group papers, which is more than most 10 to 12 week plans will use. The number that shapes the plan is smaller, because you have exactly one official paper per format, so use them where the closest match to the real exam matters most, at the start to measure and at the end to confirm.
Before you start: two dates and one diagnostic
Your exam date and your registration deadline
In France, the remaining 2026 sessions of the DELF B2 tout public are on 4 November and 2 December, and FEI’s 2027 calendar lists 13 January, 3 February, 17 March, 26 May, 16 June, 7 July, 4 August, 6 October, 17 November and 8 December. Abroad, each country has its own calendar, and a given center may not run every date, so check with yours through FEI’s center finder.
The date that binds you comes before the exam. One large Paris center closed registration for the 4 November 2026 session on 4 October, a month ahead, and the session already showed as full on 3 October, the day before that deadline.
Take the 3 February 2027 session as an example. A 10 to 12 week plan starts between 11 and 25 November 2026, and with a deadline a month ahead, registration would be due around 3 January, in the middle of the plan. If the DELF B2 is for a citizenship file, the date that really matters is your filing date, and the guide to the B2 citizenship bottleneck works backward from it.
The diagnostic: Exemple 1 under exam timing
I use the first FEI sample paper as the diagnostic and keep the second for the final timed mock, with book mocks filling the middle. Sit Exemple 1 as if it were the exam, with listening, reading and writing in one block of 2 hours 30 minutes and the official time for each paper. Then do the speaking sample on another day, with exactly 30 minutes of preparation and a recording running. Mark everything the same week with the correction key and the grids, using the method further down.
The diagnostic answers two questions, and I keep them apart. One is whether your French is at B2 yet, which the guide to the B2 level describes skill by skill. The other is whether you know the exam well enough to show that level. Points lost to timing, to a misread instruction or to a text that came out too short are a format problem, and those respond to practice on the exam itself. Points lost because you could not follow the recording or develop an argument are a level problem, and they need the weekly training in the plan below.
If one paper comes out near 5/25, the floor below which you fail whatever your total, decide before the plan starts. You can keep the date and give that paper most of your training time, or you can move to a later session. If you want a first picture before you sit a full paper, the free French level test takes about ten minutes and is unofficial, and the Bilan B2 gives you an estimated score per paper and a study plan in one session.
An example 10 to 12 week plan built around mocks
With a fixed exam date, the preparations I coach typically run 10 to 12 weeks, and I prefer ten weeks of narrow focus on what the exam asks, because a timeline forces choices. My own figures are small, but in 2026 five of the students I coached one to one sat the DELF B2 and all five passed, and about twenty others reached the level on full mock papers by my assessment.
I have no fixed pattern for when one-to-one students sit their full mocks, because it depends on the student. The table below is an example built from the 2027 calendar and the material above, and it is not a rule I apply to everyone.
Example: ten weeks before the 3 February 2027 session (France).
| Week | Starts | Full mock | Training focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 Nov 2026 | Diagnostic on FEI Exemple 1 (format 1), plus the speaking sample | Mark it and pick your weakest paper |
| 2 to 4 | 2 Dec | None | Weakest paper first, with one RFI listening session and one timed essay each week |
| 5 | 23 Dec | Book mock, in format 2 if your book has one | Mark it the same week |
| 6 and 7 | 30 Dec | None, or a center training test if your center runs one | Weakest paper again, plus recorded mock orals |
| 8 | 13 Jan 2027 | Book mock in the format that scored lower | Mark it and fix what it shows |
| 9 | 20 Jan | Final timed mock on FEI Exemple 2 (format 2) | Mark it against the key and the grids |
| 10 | 27 Jan | None | Rework the errors from your marked mocks and keep listening every day |
The weakest paper gets the most time because you need 50/100 overall and at least 5/25 on every paper, so one weak paper can sink a good total. Listening can be trained every week because it is the one area where official material is plentiful, between FEI’s model exercises and the 21 RFI exercises. Full reading and writing practice beyond the two FEI papers has to come from books.
The example also covers both formats. The diagnostic is in format 1 and the final mock is in format 2, so the book mock in week 5 is there to make sure format 2 is not new to you at the end. To check which format a book mock follows, count the exercises in its listening paper, three for format 1 and two for format 2.
FEI publishes only one speaking sample, and the diagnostic uses it, so the oral in your later mocks will come from a book or from whoever is training you. For speaking practice between mocks, the guide to speaking French with confidence covers the habits, and the daily listening and reading in week 10 can come from the resources for intermediate learners.
If your session is closer than ten weeks, keep the two FEI papers in their places and cut the middle, as long as the registration deadline has not passed.
How to mark a practice test yourself
The DELF B2 guide linked above explains the grids criterion by criterion, so this section covers only the method.
Listening and reading. These are the papers you can mark objectively. Use the correction key from the FEI page or the book, and mark strictly. A true or false answer only scores with the correct justification, so an unjustified answer is worth nothing even when you ticked the right box.
Writing. Count your words first, with FEI’s rule. The task asks for at least 250 words, and a text of 124 words or fewer scores zero, so the count comes before anything else. Then check the task itself, such as whether you wrote the type of text the prompt asked for (a forum contribution or a formal letter, for example) and took a clear position on its theme. Only then go through the grid criterion by criterion.
Speaking. Record yourself on the speaking sample or a book topic, with 30 minutes of preparation and a timer for the monologue and the debate. Watch the recording the next day with the grid in front of you, which is the same second round of marking I give my own students’ mock orals. The gap of a day helps you hear the answer you gave instead of the one you meant to give.
If you want a number, the grid’s steps put a production that is at B2 on every criterion at about 15/25. The FEI documents checked for this guide do not say how the scores of the two markers are reconciled, so treat that figure as a rough guide and not a prediction.
Where self-marking stops being reliable
Writing and speaking are where self-marking gets less reliable. In the real exam two examiners mark each production, and when you mark your own text you already know what you meant to say. If your writing and speaking marks are what decides whether you keep your date, that is the point to have someone else mark them. Objectif B2, my small-group preparation, includes full mocks in weeks 4 and 8 debriefed one to one, and the Bilan B2 gives you an estimated score per paper in a single session.
What your mock results should change
One paper below about 10/25. This is a planning threshold for this guide, not an FEI rule, since FEI’s only floor is 5/25 per paper. A paper at 10 leaves the other three needing 40 points between them, about 13.3 each, which is a narrow margin. Move training time to that paper until a book mock shows it rising.
A format that threw you. If time ran out or a paper structure surprised you, make your next mock that format, and use the RFI sessions for three-exercise listening practice in between.
A date that now looks too close. Compare the two costs. Moving to a later session costs the weeks until that session, and your center’s rules on changing a registration apply. A failed attempt costs at least one later session as well, because results take up to two months and you can only register again once you have them. Moving early also keeps Exemple 2 unused for the final mock of your new plan.
Two mocks in a row above 50/100, with no paper under your planning threshold. Keep the date and spend the last week on the errors your marked mocks already show.
Common questions about DELF B2 practice tests
How many practice tests should I do?
No FEI document checked for this guide gives a number. As a planning rule, sit at least one full timed mock in each format. The example above uses four full mocks over ten weeks, and the two FEI papers plus two books give you up to nine.
Can I prepare for the DELF B2 in 3 weeks?
Three weeks leaves room to learn the format and sit both FEI papers under exam timing, which is what you need if your level is already there. If your diagnostic shows a paper near 5/25, you have to decide whether to keep the date, and the cost of a failed attempt, at least one later session, is part of that decision.
Your first step
Open FEI’s sample papers page, download Exemple 1 with its audio and its key, and put your exam date and registration deadline in your calendar before you sit it. If you would rather have your mocks marked against the grid by someone else, the next Objectif B2 cohort has no dates yet, so its page works as a waitlist for now.