What the Latvian A2 exam looks like: four parts, scored separately
The single most useful thing to understand before you prepare is that the A2 exam is not one score. It is four, and they do not average.
Four skills, four separate results
The exam tests four skills — reading, listening, writing and speaking — and each is assessed separately rather than rolled into a single overall mark.
Because the parts are assessed separately, being strong at reading does not compensate for a weak speaking result. This is the usual reason a confident candidate is surprised by a fail.
What that means for preparation
Preparation time is best spent on your weakest skill rather than your favourite one. Reading is the easiest to practise alone and the least likely to be the part that fails you; speaking and writing are harder to practise and are where most people lose points.
Practising in the real format
Practising in the exam’s own shape matters more at A2 than at higher levels, because much of the difficulty is procedural rather than linguistic: knowing how the tasks are worded, how many details a question expects, and how long you have.
The practice tests on this site are written against the current VIAA programme and use the same task structure and timing. They score each part out of 15 with a pass mark of 9, calibrated against the official sample tests VIAA publishes — treat that as a preparation yardstick, and confirm the current official scoring in VIAA’s own materials before exam day.
Check the official programme
VIAA publishes the test programme itself, which sets out what each level requires. If you are preparing seriously, read it once — it is the document the exam is built from.
Sources
Every fact in this article comes from an official page. Rules and fees change — confirm on the source before you act on them.