How many times is the recording played in the Polish exam? telc and the state exam
Published 3 October 2026
In telc you hear every recording once. In the Polish state exam almost every listening task is played twice — at B1 the first task is usually the exception. That decides when you mark your answer.
In short
- telc B1·B2: the listening block runs 25 minutes and the recording is played once, without stopping.
- State exam B1: the first task once, the rest twice. B2: every task twice.
- When a task is played twice, the whole task runs again after a pause of about 46 seconds.
How many times each recording is played
oncetwice
How is the recording played in telc?
Listening in telc is one block: 25 minutes and 23 questions in four parts. The recording runs from start to finish, once, and nobody stops it. You cannot go back to a line you missed.
The recording does give you time, though. In parts 1 and 2 the announcer reads the question number, and then there are about 10 seconds to read it. After the recording there are about 10 seconds to mark your answer — the only moment you have for it. Before part 3 you get 60 seconds to read all the questions, before part 4, 30.
We measured the timings in parts 1 and 2 on the recording of telc's mock exam. telc does not print them, so on your exam they may differ by a second or two.
How is the recording played in the state exam?
In the state exam every task opens with an instruction, and the last sentence of it is worth catching: "Uwaga! Nagranie zostanie odtworzone tylko jeden raz" (played only once) or "…dwa razy" (twice). On the B1 papers from 2021–2024 the first task is played once and the other 4 twice. At B2 every task is played twice.
"Twice" means the whole task, not each recording back to back. First you hear the example and every recording of the task, then a pause of about 46 seconds, a signal, and the whole thing again. At the start of the test you get about 1 minute to look through the whole paper, and at the end a minute to check your answers.
The instruction does not give the length of the pause between plays. We measured it on the recordings of every sitting in the library: usually 45.5 to 46 seconds.
What happens around one recording
telc, parts 1 and 2
State exam, a task played twice
How long does the whole listening block take?
In telc, 25 minutes including the reading time. The state exam has no fixed time: the block lasts as long as that sitting's recording. On the papers in our library the B1 recording runs from 25:45 to 28:10 and the B2 one from 31:21 to 39:38.
How long the whole listening runs
telc: 60 s to read the questions before part 3, 30 s before part 4. Shortest and longest recording in the library.
What does the number of plays change about how you listen?
When the recording is played once (telc, the first B1 task)
- Read the question in the time the recording gives you and hold on to one or two words you are waiting for.
- Mark your answer straight after the recording. Do not leave it "for the end" — there is no time for it at the end.
- Missed it? Mark the likeliest answer and listen to the next one. One question costs one point; the next three, missed while thinking about it, cost three.
When the recording is played twice (state exam)
- The first time, mark only the answers you are sure of and leave the rest blank. The state exam allows neither pencil nor correction fluid, so mark nothing "to try".
- In the pause before the second play, reread the unanswered questions — you now know what to listen for.
- The second time, listen only for those. Do not change a sure answer without a clear reason.
- Listen to the end of the instruction: that is where it says whether the task is played once or twice.
What the tasks themselves look like is on separate pages: telc tasks and state exam tasks. How many points listening needs is in the telc rules and the state exam rules.