🎓 Bilingual Matura in English – Key Information

The bilingual matura is the most advanced variant of the maturity exam in a foreign language in Poland. It is mainly aimed at graduates of bilingual classes, but any student who feels capable can take it.

• Difficulty level (CEFR): The exam verifies language proficiency at the C1 (Advanced) level, and in terms of understanding written texts and listening, it often touches on the C2 (Proficiency) level.
• Duration (Written Exam): 150 minutes.
• Prestige and recruitment: The result from the bilingual matura carries significant weight during recruitment to top Polish and foreign universities. Higher education institutions often apply very favorable conversion rates for this exam (e.g., the result multiplied by x 1.33 or x 1.5 in relation to the extended level).

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📝 Structure of the Written Exam

The exam paper is designed to test the candidate’s proficiency on 4 different levels:

1. Listening Comprehension (Listening)

The recordings are authentic, speakers use various accents (British, American, Scottish, Australian), and the speech rate is natural (fast). The student must not only extract specific information but also understand the intentions, irony, or hidden messages of the author.

• Types of tasks: Multiple-choice questions, matching statements to speakers, filling in gaps in sentences (based on the recording).

2. Reading Comprehension (Reading)

Texts at the bilingual level are usually complex scientific articles, journalism, or excerpts from classical/modern English literature. They contain rare vocabulary, archaisms, and advanced idioms.

• Types of tasks: Multiple choice, matching headings, arranging missing paragraphs (Gapped Text).

3. Use of English (Use of English) – The most difficult part!

This is where examiners check the student’s „technical” precision. Absolute, one hundred percent grammatical and spelling correctness is required (a typo means losing a point).

• Types of tasks:
  • Key Word Transformations (Paraphrases): Transforming a sentence using a given word while maintaining the original meaning.
  • Word Formation: Creating new words (often with negative prefixes, e.g., undeniable, incomprehensible) from words provided in parentheses.
  • Open Cloze: Filling in the text with missing grammatical words (prepositions, pronouns, operators) – without any options to choose from.
  • Partial Translation: Translating an expression from Polish to English so that it fits the rest of the sentence.

4. Written Expression (Writing)

The student must write a text of 300–350 words. The topics require maturity, argumentative skills, and a rich arsenal of lexical and grammatical resources (e.g., stylistic inversion, conditional moods, emphatic structures).

• Forms: Usually, there are two forms to choose from: Essay with elements such as evaluating/proposing solutions or Article.

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🗣️ Oral Exam

The oral part at the bilingual level lasts about 15 minutes and resembles a conversation with a native speaker or an advanced academic debate.

1. Warm-up Conversation: A short conversation on general topics (education, future plans, hobbies).
2. Task based on a text: The student reads a short text in English, summarizes its content, and answers detailed questions from the examiner. The ability to defend one’s opinion and refer to ideas contained in the article is required.
3. Task based on illustrations (2 photos): Comparing and contrasting two photographs and answering two related questions (often philosophical or abstract in nature).

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💡 How does the Bilingual Matura differ from the Extended Matura?

Many people wonder what distinguishes these two exams. The main differences are:

• Use of English: In the extended exam, grammar is standard (tenses, passive voice). In the bilingual exam, exceptions, inversions, rare phrasal verbs, and difficult collocations are verified.
• Vocabulary: The vocabulary threshold is around 8000 – 10,000 words. The texts are filled with idioms.
• Word limit (Writing): In the extended exam, we write 200-250 words, in the bilingual exam: 300-350 words, which requires significantly longer focus and better text planning.
• Audience: The written expression must be maintained in a very formal, academic tone (unless the article prompt suggests otherwise).