DALF

Preparing for and taking the C1 exam was grueling, but passing it is actually not difficult. You only need an overall score above 50 and at least 5 in each section, so it allows you to have stronger and weaker areas (for example, I scored 22 in reading and 8 in listening).

Overall, the exam felt very abstract to me, specifically in the following ways:

Most of the topics discussed are intellectually demanding: environmental protection, technology, humanity and nature, vegetarianism, and so on.

Both the listening and reading sections contain a large number of subjective questions—that is, questions without standard answers. Even while preparing for the exam, I often did not know where to begin. Much of the time, it felt as though one answer could be right, but another could be right as well. This is unlike IELTS, where most questions are specific multiple-choice questions.

The exam places great emphasis on looking at issues from different perspectives—in other words, nuancer. Your views cannot be black and white: if you discuss the positive side, you must also mention the negative side (this is especially important in the writing and speaking sections).

For me, passing C1 was only the beginning. It made me more willing to speak up in everyday life and at work, but I still need to keep practicing my listening and speaking. This is because in-depth conversations between French people contain so many references. Nevertheless, preparing for the exam did deepen my understanding of French culture, which was also my original reason for taking it.

If your goal is to communicate more easily in everyday life, I would not particularly recommend taking C1; B2 is enough. Both the preparation and the exam format for C1 are excessively punishing (I took the exam from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), and the language is overly academic. If you want to challenge yourself or are already above B2 level, I recommend aiming higher and taking C2 directly, because its exam format is simpler, although it naturally demands a higher level of overall language proficiency.