The official material: free sample papers from each body and no syllabus book

What is published, and what is not

Some countries publish a book and draw the questions from it. Italy cannot, because article 9.1 of Law 91/1992 asks for a level of Italian rather than a body of knowledge. There is no official syllabus book, no question pool and no list of facts to learn.

What the four bodies publish instead is the thing that matters for a language exam: a complete past or model paper, the audio for the listening, the transcripts, the answer keys and the criteria the examiners mark against. Working through that tells you the shape of the paper, the length of the texts and what the examiner rewards.

The sample is not the paper you will sit. Each session has its own texts and tasks. What stays fixed is the structure, the timings and the marking, and those are what the material teaches.

The CILS B1 Cittadinanza kit, item by item

All nine files are on one Centro CILS page, Prove Liv. B1 c, and all are free.

• Sillabo. The description of the paper: purpose, the four abilità, the durations and the task types.
• Quaderno. The sample candidate booklet, with the instructions and timings printed as they are on the day.
• Trascrizione dell'audio. The transcripts of the two ascolto prove.
• File audio. The MP3 the ascolto is played from.
• Produzione scritta. The sheet with the written task.
• Produzione orale. The examiner's input for the oral, so you can see what the dialogue is built from.
• Chiavi. The answer keys, marked as updated.
• Criteri di valutazione. The marking grid: 12 points per abilità, and how the written and oral points are split.
• Foglio delle risposte. The answer sheet you fill in for the ascolto and the reading.

The other three bodies' material

Each is on the body's own site. None charges for it.

• CELI 2 i (B1) Cittadinanza, PerugiaThe CVCL's esami CELI immigrati page links the exam description, the marking criteria for the written and the oral, two complete sample exams as downloads, examples of the oral input and the answer sheets.
• PLIDA B1, Società Dante AlighieriThe preparati all'esame page offers prove d'esempio, prove commentate and the specifiche degli esami by level, with a kit to download for each. It also advertises a paid online preparation course, which is separate from the free material.
• CERT.IT B1, Roma TreThe livello B1 page says “In fondo alla pagina è possibile scaricare un esempio di esame per esercitarsi” and links a full sample paper as a zip plus the three audio files for the ascolto.

What the sample tells you to practise

The CILS material is specific about the written task: an email of 80 to 120 words asking for information or resolving a problem with a service. That is a narrow genre and it can be rehearsed. The marking grid gives 4 of the 12 points to morphosyntactic correctness and 3 to communicative effectiveness, so accuracy in short sentences is worth more than ambition.

The oral is a presentation of yourself of about a minute and a dialogue of two to three minutes on the examiner's input. The published input shows what the dialogue is built from, so there is no reason to meet it cold.

The reading and listening are true or false and multiple choice on everyday texts, the sample uses a regional transport service and a sports event in a piazza. The tasks reward reading the questions before the text and not stopping on an unknown word.

More on the CILS B1 Cittadinanza

• CILS B1 CittadinanzaSample questions and what the exam is
• The B1 certificateItaly has no knowledge test.
• Booking, fee and datesYou do not register with the university.
• Who is exemptArticle 9.1 names two groups who do not have to produce anything, a diploma that counts instead of a certificate and, since 2025, a third group added by the Corte costituzionale.
• After the examThe certificate is the start of the application, not the end of it.

See all Italian citizenship requirements

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