Dansk 3 Prøve: A 6-Week Study Plan Built on the Pass Rule

The “Dansk 3 prøve” is Prøve i Dansk 3 (PD3), the final test of Danish Education 3 at B2 level. A plan for it should start from how it is passed, not from a list of grammar chapters. You get three grades, for reading, writing and oral communication. You pass with an average of at least 2.0 in which the oral grade counts twice, and 2.0 cannot be reached by rounding [official: BEK 1687/2025 §48 stk.2; BEK 1759/2024 §12 stk.2]. The arithmetic, including why an oral 7 passes on its own, is worked through in the pass rule and calculator.

Three facts from that rule shape the plan below. The oral is worth half of the result, yet it is held weeks after the written day, so it needs time both before and after. In writing, one grade is given for both tasks and the second task is “afgørende”, decisive, for it (bilag 1 pt 3.23); that task is the text of at least 200 words (pt 3.30) [official]. And reading is marked with a key, so it is the part where method pays fastest.

Rule and times: BEK 1687/2025 bilag 1 pt 3.7, 3.10 and 3.22 [official]; 240 is our sum of 25 + 65 + 150. Deadline: SIRI’s Prøvedatoer 2027 PDF [official].

PD3 is held twice a year, in May–June and November–December, and you register directly with a language centre [official: SIRI dates page]. SIRI has published the 2027 dates as a one-page PDF, “Prøvedatoer 2027”, linked from the dates page. The page is not consistent with itself here: on 13 October 2026 its running text for Prøve i Dansk 3 still said the summer 2027 date “offentliggøres senere” (will be published later), while the PDF linked lower on the same page gives the dates. The table uses the PDF [official]; if the two still differ when you read this, ask the language centre you register with. The written test is on one national day per term; the oral is held within a window, and the centre decides your day [official].

Two things follow. First, the registration deadline falls about ten weeks before the written day: 71 days before it for summer 2027 (our count). A six-week plan therefore begins after registration has closed; for summer 2027 week 1 starts on 30 March, four weeks after the deadline of 1 March. Register first, plan second. After the deadline a centre may still let you in “i særlige tilfælde”, and may refuse, for example if there is no room [official: SIRI dates page]. Second, the three to five weeks between the written day and the oral window are part of your preparation, and the plan uses them. Fees, ID and who may register are in the self-study, registration and fee guide.

The split below is ours. It follows the pass rule rather than habit: many learners spend most of their time on reading and grammar because those are easy to do alone, and leave the half of the result that is spoken until the topic arrives.

If one part is clearly your weakest, shift time towards it; the planner does that for you. But be careful with the opposite instinct. A candidate who reads and writes well and dreads speaking is tempted to polish the written parts further. Under this pass rule that is the worst trade available: with reading 7 and writing 7, an oral of -3 still gives exactly 2.0, and nothing better than a bare pass (our arithmetic).

Begin with a measurement. Sit SIRI’s summer 2023 reading set on the clock, 25 minutes for delprøve 1 and 65 for the rest, with no dictionary, and mark it with the keys. Write one e-mail and one text of 200 words, by hand if your centre does not offer a computer. Record yourself giving a two-minute presentation on any societal topic. You now have three samples of your own Danish, and everything else in the plan refers back to them. The files are indexed, with working links, in the past-papers guide.

Write three task-2 texts this week, one task A and two task B. Keep to the three points of the task, give each its own paragraph and let the third take about half, which is what the published papers ask for. After each text, check it against SIRI’s descriptions of the grades. The model-answers guide shows a weaker and a stronger answer to the same task with every difference marked, and has a word counter with a checklist.

You have used the official reading set, so this week is method on other texts. For delprøve 1, take any long informative text with headings, write five factual questions before reading, then find the answers against a timer. For 2B, cut a newspaper article into paragraphs and reassemble it. The examples guide has one short task of each type with the reasons for the answers. Then do the 20 correction drills and, more important, look for the same six patterns in the texts you wrote in weeks 1 and 2.

Write three e-mails of thirty minutes each: all four questions answered, each tied to what the friend wrote. For the oral, take two topics and answer aloud the four kinds of follow-up question printed in the official censor and examiner booklet: clarifying, elaborating, asking for an explanation and a reason, and asking for your view with arguments (the regulation’s words are “opklaring, uddybning, begrundelse og stillingtagen”, bilag 1 pt 3.37). The 2024 booklet scripts three complete topics you can use.

Run the written day once from start to finish: reading 25 and 65 minutes, a break of about ten minutes, then 2½ hours of writing with the dictionary you will bring. Use the May–June 2022 writing paper if you have not opened it, and read SIRI’s passed answer afterwards. The point of the run is the clock: most people discover that the e-mail took too long.

No new material. Rewrite your weakest text from the run. List your five most frequent errors and write each sentence correctly three times. Check what you must bring: original ID, a dictionary for writing, nothing for reading. The rules of the room and the list of accepted ID are in the written exam guide.

Once the written test is behind you, every hour goes to the half of the result that is still open. The oral has two parts of five minutes each, instructions included: a presentation of about two minutes on a topic you are given in advance, followed by about 2½ minutes of questions, and then about 4½ minutes of questions on one of three topics drawn by lot [official: examiner booklet, May–June 2024].

While you wait for your topic, practise the unprepared part, because it cannot be learned by heart: answer a “hvorfor tror du …” question and a “hvilke fordele og ulemper …” question aloud every day, and give a reason without being asked. When the topic arrives, build the presentation in three sub-points, open with an outline and time it at two minutes. You may bring your own notes of one A4 page for the presentation (BEK 1687/2025 §26 stk.2) [official]. When exactly the topic is handed out is stated differently on SIRI’s page and in the regulation; both versions, and the whole oral day, are in the oral exam guide.

The planner drops the weeks that have already passed, but the priorities are worth stating. With four weeks, merge weeks 3 and 4 and keep the full run. With two weeks, do the timed reading set, two task-2 texts and one e-mail, and speak every day. With days, read the pass rule again and put your time where the weights are: the 200-word text in writing, and a presentation you can deliver in two minutes. All of this is our advice.

No authority says that six weeks are enough, and we do not either. PD3 closes module 5 of Danish Education 3, a course that takes most people far longer than six weeks. The plan is for someone whose Danish is already near B2 and who needs to turn it into three grades. The official statistics show how much the route matters: among those who completed all parts, candidates enrolled on a course passed far more often than self-studiers. The figures and their source are in the self-study and pass-rate guide. If your week-1 samples are far from the descriptions of a pass, the useful decision may be the later sitting.