German language examination for university entrance

The German language examination for university entrance ( DSH ), formerly exam to prove fluency in German ( PNDS ), is a linguistic entrance examination, which serves the for university studies in Germany required German language skills prove not native speaking applicants. It is also of applicants German nationality deposit, boast the no German education have (z. B. repatriates with German citizenship, but a foreign university entrance qualification ), but not of Bildungsinländer .

Eligibility to participate

The prerequisite for participating in the DSH is admission to a specialist course at many universities , but there are also increasingly "open" DSHs that are also open to non-university applicants who (yet) have no admission.

As part of restructuring, the DSH is now only offered for a fee at many universities, with prices ranging between € 40 and € 150. At some locations, the exam can be repeated a maximum of two times, and there must be at least three months between a failed exam and a repetition. Participation in a preparatory course is recommended. The test can be repeated at other locations without any restrictions.

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Assessment and examination parts

The DSH consists of a written and an oral exam. The written partial exams take place before the oral one. To pass the overall test, both partial tests must be passed, but the overall result is not averaged. To achieve the DSH 2 level, which is usually aimed at, z. B. both parts of the examination are passed with at least the result DSH 2, examination participants who have achieved DSH 3 in the written sub-examination but only complete the oral sub-examination with DSH 1, also only achieve level DSH 1 in the overall result.

The pass limit for each partial examination is 57% of the maximum achievable number of points, between 67% and 81% the DSH 2 level is set, from 82% DSH 3.

As a rule, a monolingual dictionary may be used to process the written sub-examination. It lasts three to four hours and includes the following areas of responsibility:

Understanding and processing an audio text
Understanding and editing a reading text
Default-oriented text production
Understanding and working on structures in academic language

The four areas of responsibility can also be combined. However, all four areas of responsibility must be checked.

Audio text

In the task area " Understanding and processing an audio text ", the applicants should show that they can follow lectures and lectures from the scientific field with understanding and that they can make useful notes.

The audio text is 50 to 100 lines long. Before the presentation, information is provided about the thematic context. The text is then read out once or twice. Notes can be made. Before the last lecture, tasks are set:

Answering questions
Reproduction or summary of the text

In the assessment, content-related aspects are given greater consideration than linguistic correctness.

levels

The result of the DSH is given in three levels (DSH 1 to DSH 3). Since DSH examinations are partly prepared decentrally in the individual institutes, a general assignment of the results to the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (GER) is not easily possible. In admission procedures, however, they are evaluated in the same way as levels TDN-3 to TDN-5 of the TestDaF ( Test of German as a Foreign Language ), which determine a language level between B2 and C2 according to the GER.

At level DSH 1, enrollment can be linked to attending additional language courses and a new examination; without further requirements, it is usually only sufficient for enrollment in bilingual (e.g. English-German) courses. For the majority of courses at German-speaking universities, the level DSH 2 is required for enrollment, DSH 3 is only required for studies in human medicine or dentistry and for some other courses with increased language requirements.

According to the framework regulations for the DSH (version dated June 8, 2004 ), the individual universities design the exams independently, but within a standardized framework, so the tasks at individual universities can also differ. Nevertheless, it has the DSH of each German university by the German Rectors' Conference based on the new framework regulations accredited are been recognized by other universities.