PAU English Galicia 2027: CiUG exam format, marking and tips

If you’re taking the PAU in Galicia (formerly the ABAU, or selectividad), the CiUG English exam has something you won’t find in almost any other region: a pronunciation question. It’s also a very Use of English-heavy exam: sentence transformations, a text with 20 gaps, and synonyms and antonyms. There’s no listening and there are no open questions, and the writing task is about 140 words.

In this guide I explain what the Galicia PAU English exam is like, based on the official circular and assessment criteria, the 2026 papers and the 2027 model exam: what you have to do in each question, how much it’s worth, what loses you marks, how the writing is marked, how to manage your time, and a worked example of each part. All explained from my experience preparing students for official exams. Let’s get started! 🙂

If you’re looking for an overview of the test (what the PAU is, how much English counts towards your mark or what level you need), you’ll find it in my guide to the PAU English exam.

What the Galicia PAU English exam is like

The Inglés exam lasts 90 minutes (in 2026 it was on Wednesday 3 June, from 9:30 to 11:00), is marked out of 10 and has four questions:

You have to answer every question: there’s no choice between two papers, and the only thing you choose is the writing task. The text in question 1 is between 350 and 450 words long and is usually an adapted newspaper article on a current topic: beauty filters on TikTok, the benefits of walking or female DJs in British dance music.

What this means in practice is that grammar and vocabulary make up almost half the exam (questions 2 and 3 add up to 4.5 marks). If you prepare the Use of English side well, you have a lot of marks in the bag.

Question 1.1: True, False or Not Given (1.5 marks)

You get 6 statements about the text, worth 0.25 marks each. For each one you decide whether it’s True, False or Not Given (the information isn’t in the text), and these are the three rules you need to know by heart:

• Answer in English: True, False or Not Given (or their initials, T, F and NG; Doesn’t Say is also accepted). If you write «verdadero» or «verdadeiro», you get 0.
• If it’s True or False, justify it by copying the part of the text that proves it. Without a justification, you get 0.
• If it’s Not Given, don’t write anything else. If you add a justification, you also get 0.

There’s no fixed number of each type: there could be two Not Given answers or none at all. Here’s an example with an extract written for this guide:

When the town library reopened last spring, it started offering free coding workshops for teenagers. More than 200 young people signed up in the first month, far more than the organisers had expected.

• The workshops were more popular than the organisers had predicted. ✅ True. «More than 200 young people signed up in the first month, far more than the organisers had expected.»
• The coding workshops were designed for adults. ✅ False. «It started offering free coding workshops for teenagers.»
• Most of the participants were girls. ✅ Not Given. ❌ Not Given. The text doesn’t say anything about girls. (you’ve added a justification: 0 marks)

My tips for this section:

• Tell False and Not Given apart: it’s False if the text says the opposite, and Not Given if the text says nothing about it. If you can’t find a sentence to copy, it’s probably Not Given.
• Copy the specific sentence, in inverted commas, not the whole paragraph.
• Be wary of absolute words (all, only, exclusively, never). They’re often what makes a statement false.

Question 1.2: Synonyms and antonyms (1 mark)

You get 5 words, worth 0.2 marks each, and next to each one there’s an S (find a synonym) or an A (find an antonym). The answer can be a word or a group of words from the text, and it has to mean the same (or the opposite) in that context.

The rule that loses most marks: keep the form of the word you’re given, not the form in the text. If you’re given a plural noun, your answer goes in the plural; if you’re given a past tense verb, your answer goes in the past, even if it appears in a different form in the text. When a word could be a verb or a noun, the word class is given in brackets, for example import (verb, A). Using the extract above:

Notice signed up: a phrasal verb counts as an answer. That’s why it’s worth knowing the 50 most common phrasal verbs and their formal equivalents: they come up again and again in this kind of question.

Question 2.1: Sentence transformations (1.5 marks)

You have to rewrite 6 sentences, worth 0.25 marks each, using the word or expression given in brackets and without changing the meaning. The sentences don’t have to come from the text. The criteria are very clear about two things:

• There has to be a real transformation. If you just add the word to the original sentence without changing its structure, you get 0.
• The meaning can’t change. A grammatically perfect sentence that says something different also gets 0.

A mistake that isn’t structural (a spelling or punctuation slip) can cost you 0.1. These are the transformations that come up most, with examples written for this guide:

And an example of what doesn’t count: «Do not touch the paintings,» the guide told us. You’ve used not, but the sentence is still the same one: 0 marks.

If you want to revise these structures, have a look at my guides to reported speech and conditional sentences. And since this exercise is very similar to the key word transformations in B2 First, B2 Use of English Part 4 is excellent practice.

Question 2.2: Pronunciation (1 mark)

This is the most unusual question in the Galicia PAU. It has 5 marked items, worth 0.2 marks each (one question can ask you for two words), and the words don’t have to come from the text. The good news is that it almost always tests rules you can learn:

An example question (written for this guide): In which word is the -ed ending pronounced /ɪd/? played, stopped, decided, cleaned. The answer is decided, because the root ends in /d/.

My tip: say the words quietly to yourself (without anyone hearing you, of course) and learn the -ed and -s rules, which come up most. Silent letters and word stress are learnt by listening to English: series, podcasts and videos with English subtitles.

Question 3: Use of English (2 marks)

It’s a text with 20 gaps, worth 0.1 marks each, and there’s only one correct answer for each gap. In 2026 it was a word bank cloze: you complete the text with words from a box in which five are left over, and each word can only be used once. But be careful, because the 2027 criteria allow three formats, and the instructions will tell you which one you’ve got:

• Word bank cloze: you choose words from a box, some of which you won’t need.
• Multiple choice cloze: you choose the correct option for each gap.
• Word formation cloze: you write the correct form of the word given (for example, decide → decision, care → careless).

Whichever one you get, the method is the same:

• Read the whole text before filling anything in, so you know what it’s about.
• For each gap, first decide what type of word is missing: a noun, a verb, an adjective, a preposition? Look at what comes just before and just after.
• Watch out for dependent prepositions (interested in, depend on, instead of) and collocations (make a decision, play a key role).
• In the word bank, cross out each word as you use it. The five extra words are usually traps of the same word class as correct ones.
• In word formation, check whether you need a plural, a negative (un-, dis-, -less) or an adverb (-ly).

Question 4: Writing (3 marks)

You’re given two tasks in different genres and you choose one. The length is 140 words, with a 15% margin either way, so between 119 and 161 words. These are the tasks from the 2026 papers and the 2027 model exam:

As you can see, genre matters: an email needs a greeting and a sign-off, and an article needs a title and a tone that grabs the reader.

How the writing is marked

With four criteria of equal weight, 0.75 marks each:

And one very serious rule: if the content doesn’t match the topic, the question gets 0, however well written it is. Read the task twice and answer exactly what you’re asked.

The criteria give specific examples of the basic mistakes that pull your grammar mark down, and it’s worth keeping them in mind when you check your work:

• Leaving out the subject before the verb (❌ Is very important → ✅ It is very important).
• Forgetting the third person -s (❌ she read → ✅ she reads).
• Making adjectives plural (❌ differents ideas → ✅ different ideas).
• Misusing demonstratives and possessives (❌ this people → ✅ these people; ❌ Laura and his brother → ✅ Laura and her brother) or not controlling verb tenses.

Writing example with answers

You’ll find worked examples of other text types in my other guides: an opinion essay in the Andalusia guide, a for and against essay in the Canary Islands guide, an informal email in the Madrid guide, a formal email in the Murcia guide, a narrative in the Valencian Community guide, a review in the Catalonia guide and a problem-solution essay in the Castile and León guide. So here’s one that comes up a lot in Galicia and isn’t in any of them: the article.

Task (written for this guide): Your school magazine is publishing articles about healthy habits. Write an article explaining why teenagers should spend less time sitting down and suggesting ways to be more active.

Stand Up for Your Health!

How many hours do you spend sitting down every day? If you add up the time in class, on the bus and in front of a screen, the answer will probably surprise you.

Sitting for too long is not only bad for your back. Doctors warn that a sedentary lifestyle can lead to serious health problems, and it also makes it harder to concentrate. The good news is that small changes can make a big difference.

First of all, try walking or cycling to school instead of asking your parents for a lift. Secondly, take a short break every hour while you are studying. Even a five-minute walk around the house will help you feel more awake.

So, what are you waiting for? Get up, get moving and you will notice the benefits sooner than you think!

Why it works:

• It answers both parts of the task: it explains why teenagers should sit less (second paragraph) and suggests ways to move more (third paragraph).
• It has what an article needs: an eye-catching title, a direct question to the reader to open, a friendly tone and an ending that encourages action.
• No idea is repeated: each paragraph adds something new.
• Varied structures: a first conditional (If you add up…, the answer will…), gerunds as a subject and after a preposition (Sitting for too long, instead of asking), make it harder to, help you feel and a comparison (sooner than you think).
• Linkers that organise the text: not only, and, The good news is that, First of all, Secondly, while, So. You’ll find more in my B2 connectors.
• Precise vocabulary: a sedentary lifestyle, lead to, make a big difference, a lift, feel more awake.
• 137 words not counting the title, within the 119-161 range.
• It’s written to simulate a B2 level, without reaching C1, with realistic vocabulary for a student in the final year of Bachillerato.

Vocabulary for the most common topics

The texts and tasks in recent papers revolve around technology, health, education, the environment and society: social media, walking and a sedentary lifestyle, smartphones in class, free university education, video games, volunteering or friendship. Prepare vocabulary for these topics:

How to manage the 90 minutes

With six different tasks, the most important thing is not to get stuck on any of them. This is the split I recommend:

A tip: if a transformation or a pronunciation question is giving you trouble, leave it and come back at the end. Each one is worth very little (0.25 and 0.2), and it isn’t worth losing time from the writing, which is worth 3 marks.

How it differs from other regions

If you’ve seen papers from other regions (or my guides to Madrid, Andalusia and Castile and León), these are the differences that affect you most:

Papers from other regions are useful for practising reading, transformations and writing, but in Galicia you also need to prepare two things that hardly anyone else tests: pronunciation and the 20-gap text.

Common mistakes in the Galicia PAU English exam

• Answering the true or false in Spanish or Galician: you get 0.
• Not justifying a True or a False, or justifying a Not Given: both get 0.
• Giving the synonym in a different form: singular when they ask for plural, present when they ask for past.
• Adding the word to the sentence without transforming it, or transforming it and changing the meaning.
• Not revising the -ed and -s rules: they’re the easiest marks in the pronunciation question.
• Using the same word from the box twice in the Use of English.
• Writing fewer than 119 words or more than 161, or going off topic: if the content doesn’t match the task, the writing gets 0.
• Forgetting the genre: an article without a title, or an email without a greeting or sign-off.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Galicia PAU in 2027?

The 2027 dates haven’t been published yet. In 2026, the ordinary sitting was on 2, 3 and 4 June and the extraordinary sitting on 30 June and 1 and 2 July. The English exam was on the second day, from 9:30 to 11:00. As soon as the 2027 calendar comes out, I’ll add it here.

Is there a listening test in the Galicia PAU English exam?

No. The whole exam is written: reading comprehension, grammar, pronunciation, a gapped text and a writing task.

Can I choose between two papers?

No. You have to answer every question, and the only thing you choose is the writing task, from two options.

What’s changing in 2027?

The structure and marks are the same as in 2026. The new feature is in question 3: in 2026 it was a gapped text to complete with words from a box, and the 2027 criteria add two more possible formats, the multiple choice cloze and the word formation cloze. Prepare all three.

How many words should the writing be?

140, with a 15% margin: between 119 and 161 words. My advice is to aim for around 140 and count them before you hand in your paper.

Is the English exam the same as a second foreign language?

Yes. The CiUG circular applies the same model to both English exams: first foreign language (code 11) and second foreign language (code 63). What changes is the day and time of the exam.

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Good luck with the PAU and, until then, don’t forget to keep smiling! 🙂