Free CELPE-Bras Level Quiz
Estimate your Brazilian Portuguese proficiency level in 10 minutes
This free online diagnostic quiz estimates your CELPE-Bras proficiency level through five integrated skill assessments: reading comprehension, listening comprehension, genre and register awareness, AI-scored writing, and calibrated self-assessment. The quiz is designed to mirror the integrated, task-based approach of the official CELPE-Bras examination administered by INEP (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anisio Teixeira), Brazil's federal education assessment agency.
What is CELPE-Bras?
CELPE-Bras (Certificado de Proficiencia em Lingua Portuguesa para Estrangeiros) is the only officially recognized Brazilian Portuguese proficiency certificate. It is required for foreign doctors, dentists, and other professionals seeking to practice in Brazil, and for international students applying to Brazilian universities through programs like PEC-G. The exam is administered twice per year at authorized test centers in Brazil and in over 30 countries worldwide. Unlike discrete-point language tests that assess grammar and vocabulary in isolation, CELPE-Bras uses integrated tasks that require candidates to read, listen, and write in response to authentic Brazilian media texts.
CELPE-Bras Proficiency Levels
The exam certifies four proficiency levels, mapped approximately to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR):
- Intermediario (approximately CEFR B1) — Can communicate in predictable everyday situations, understands simple and direct texts such as notices, advertisements, and instructions. Produces short written texts with basic structure, though vocabulary and grammatical limitations may appear.
- Intermediario Superior (approximately CEFR B2) — Understands more complex texts including news reports and informational articles. Produces texts with adequate genre structure, basic argumentation, and reasonable cohesion. Can express opinions and participate in discussions on familiar topics.
- Avancado (approximately CEFR C1) — Understands complex texts including opinion pieces, irony, and figurative language. Demonstrates command of genre conventions, adapting register and tone to context. Produces coherent, well-argued texts across a range of genres.
- Avancado Superior (approximately CEFR C2) — Demonstrates broad command of Portuguese in any communicative situation. Understands subtleties, implicit meaning, humor, cultural references, and regional variation. Moves fluently between genres and registers with sophisticated expression.
Candidates who do not reach the Intermediario threshold receive no certification.
How the CELPE-Bras Writing Section Is Scored
The official CELPE-Bras writing tasks are evaluated on three dimensions: Adequacao Contextual (whether the text addresses the correct audience, genre, and communicative purpose), Adequacao Discursiva (coherence, cohesion, autonomy from source material, and quality of argumentation), and Adequacao Linguistica (vocabulary range, grammatical accuracy, and structural resources appropriate to the genre). This diagnostic quiz uses AI-powered evaluation aligned with these same three criteria to provide immediate, detailed writing feedback.
What This Quiz Assesses
The diagnostic covers five sections in approximately 10 minutes: four reading comprehension questions using authentic Brazilian Portuguese texts, two listening comprehension tasks with audio clips, three genre and register awareness questions testing your ability to match communicative situations with appropriate textual formats, one writing task scored by AI on the three official evaluation dimensions, and a calibrated self-assessment. Your responses produce a composite score mapped to CELPE-Bras proficiency levels.
Disclaimer
This is not an official CELPE-Bras product and is not affiliated with INEP. It provides an informal estimate based on a limited set of questions and does not assess oral proficiency, which determines 50% of the official CELPE-Bras result. Use this quiz as a starting point for your preparation. For official information, visit the INEP CELPE-Bras page at gov.br/inep. For past exams and scoring rubrics, visit the Acervo CELPE-Bras archive at ufrgs.br/acervocelpebras.
Please enable JavaScript to take the quiz. This application requires JavaScript for the interactive assessment, audio playback, and AI-powered writing evaluation.