Cambridge IGCSE Spanish 0530/12 is the May/June 2026 Paper 1 (Listening), variant 2. It lasts about 50 minutes, including 6 minutes to transfer your answers, has 37 questions worth 40 marks, and every 0530 candidate sits it. You hear each recording twice and answer every question. The biggest exercise is the two-part interview with Alberto, a uniform designer, at 9 marks. This guide gives the official answer to every question, says what each one tested, and explains how the 40 marks are awarded. The paper and its mark scheme are free on the Tutopiya Learning Portal.

For an overview of all the 0530 papers from this series, see IGCSE Spanish 0530 May/June 2026 past papers: what came up and how it was marked.

No transcript is published with the 2026 Spanish listening paper, so everything below comes from the question paper and the mark scheme. Where a question had pictures, the answer is described from the picture printed in the paper.

0530/12 at a glance

Questions	Recording	Format	Marks
1–8	Short recordings at a dance class	Choose one picture (A–D)	8
9–14	Announcement about a countryside excursion	Choose one picture (A–D)	6
15–19	Elena and Pablo talk about places to stay	Match five places to statements (A–F)	5
20–28	Two-part interview with Alberto, a work uniform designer	Choose one sentence ending (A–C)	9
29–34	Interview with Felipe, a school canteen cook	Choose one sentence (A–D)	6
35–37	Sara tells Pedro about the ring she lost	Choose two true statements (A–E) per question	6
	Total		40

All the questions and options are printed in Spanish. You mark your answers on the question paper while you listen, then copy them onto the multiple choice answer sheet in the final 6 minutes, shading one letter for Questions 1 to 34 and two letters for Questions 35 to 37.

Answer key

Question	What it tested	Answer
1	Which room the dance class is in	C
2	What your friend will wear	D
3	The first activity in the class	A
4	When the break ends	C
5	Which instrument you will hear	B
6	Where you will dance next week	D
7	What hurts your friend	A
8	Which film is on at the cinema	C
9	How many hours the excursion lasts	C
10	Transport for the first part of the route	A
11	What you can do at midday	D
12	The weather at night	D
13	Where the group rests at night	A
14	What the group will have for breakfast	B
15	Hotel Marisol	E
16	Casa Rural Paco	C
17	Albergue Bellavista	F
18	Apartamentos turísticos Costabella	D
19	Pensión El Mar	A
20	Who Fernando Soler is	A
21	The clothes Alberto wore in the shop	C
22	What gave Alberto’s business a good start	C
23	Alberto’s view of designing work clothes	B
24	What he must bear in mind when designing	A
25	His view of the restaurant uniforms	A
26	His company’s premises	C
27	The company’s logo	A
28	What Alberto finds hard	B
29	Felipe’s first days in the school canteen	C
30	The headteacher	B
31	An advantage of Felipe’s current job	A
32	Something Felipe did recently	C
33	Something that once happened in the canteen	B
34	A benefit of good school food	D
35	Sara’s family and the ring (two answers)	B and D
36	When and how Sara lost and looked for it (two answers)	A and E
37	How the ring came back (two answers)	C and E

Question-by-question walkthrough

Questions 1–8: at a dance class (8 marks)

You are at a dance class with a Mexican friend, and each short recording answers one question with a picture choice. The answers, as the pictures show them:

• Q1: the class is in room F (C). The four boxes were the letters M, H, F and O, so you had to catch a single spoken letter.
• Q2: your friend will put on dance shoes (D), not the T-shirt, socks or shorts.
• Q3: the first activity is picture A, one person moving on her own. The distractors were running, sitting down to drink and two people dancing together.
• Q4: the break ends at 6:15 (C). The options were 6:00, 6:10, 6:15 and 6:30, so expect quarter-past and half-past to sound similar under pressure.
• Q5: you will listen to the drums (B), not the piano, guitar or violin.
• Q6: next week you will dance in a park (D), not on a beach, on a stage or in a town square.
• Q7: your friend’s knee hurts (A). The other arrows pointed at the back, the head and the foot.
• Q8: the film is a romantic one (C, a screen full of hearts), not science fiction, horror or a music film.

Questions 9–14: a countryside excursion (6 marks)

An announcement describes an outdoor excursion, with a pause in the middle.

• Q9: it lasts 24 hours (C). The other numbers were 12, 16 and 30.
• Q10: the first part of the route is on horseback (A), not by bike, coach or on foot.
• Q11: at midday you can swim in the river (D). The distractors were rowing, resting under a tree and fishing.
• Q12: the night will be cold (D, a shivering person in falling snow), not windy, stormy or rainy.
• Q13: the group rests by the lake (A), not in the log cabin, the tent or on the bench. A cabin and a tent are the obvious guesses for night-time, which is why you need to hear it.
• Q14: breakfast is a hot drink with chocolate (B), not fried eggs, cereal, or a banana with yoghurt.

Questions 15–19: places to stay (5 marks)

Elena and Pablo discuss five places to stay, and you match each one to a statement. There are six statements, so one is left over.

• Hotel Marisol (15): E, it is fairly cheap to sleep there.
• Casa Rural Paco (16): C, the rooms are small.
• Albergue Bellavista (17): F, you can’t stay there at the moment.
• Apartamentos Costabella (18): D, it is far from the restaurants.
• Pensión El Mar (19): A, Elena has stayed there before.

Statement B, that the building is very beautiful, was not used. With one spare statement, you can’t rely on elimination for the last place, so listen for a reason to confirm each match.

Questions 20–28: Alberto, a work uniform designer (9 marks)

A two-part interview, each part heard twice, with three options per question.

• Part 1 (20–24): Fernando Soler is Alberto’s colleague (A, not his brother or neighbour); the clothes Alberto wore in the shop were ugly (C); his business got off to a good start thanks to a new supermarket (C, not a local government grant or a social media advert); he finds designing work clothes fun (B); and work clothes must be easy to wash (A).
• Part 2 (25–28): he is proud of his work for the restaurant (A); his company will stay where it is (C); the logo is different from the one he preferred at first (A); and the hard part is choosing the people who work for him (B).

Every option in this section is a plausible thing a designer might say, so don’t pick an option just because you hear one of its words. Choose the one the speaker actually confirms.

Questions 29–34: Felipe, a school canteen cook (6 marks)

One interview with a pause after Question 31, and four sentence options per question.

• Q29: when he started, Felipe got angry at what he saw (C).
• Q30: the headteacher was surprised when he applied for the job (B).
• Q31: an advantage of the job is more days off (A).
• Q32: recently he taught people to make desserts (C).
• Q33: once, a child wanted to feed his toys (B).
• Q34: because the school food is good, pupils study better (D).

These options are full sentences in Spanish, so most of the work is done in the reading time. Underline the key word in each option (radio, contest, restaurant; days off, complaints, bedtime, distance) before the recording starts.

Questions 35–37: Sara’s lost ring (6 marks)

Sara tells her friend Pedro about a ring she lost, with two pauses. Each question has five statements and you tick the two that are true.

• Q35 (B and D): Sara’s sister has several children, and the colour of the ring’s stone was special to Sara.
• Q36 (A and E): Sara knows the exact moment she lost the ring, and she searched for it again this morning.
• Q37 (C and E): the message Sara received included a picture, and she is glad she won’t have to give her grandmother bad news.

Where the marks are on 0530/12

• Picture questions carried 14 marks (Questions 1–14). These are the most accessible on the paper: one detail per question, often a number, a letter or an everyday object.
• Matching carried 5 marks (Questions 15–19), with one spare statement.
• Sentence-choice questions carried 15 marks: 9 with three options (Alberto) and 6 with four options (Felipe).
• Two-answer questions carried 6 marks (Questions 35–37), one per correct letter.
• Longer recordings carried 26 of the 40 marks (Questions 15–37), so the second half of the paper decides most grades.

How to self-mark 0530/12 with the mark scheme

1. Use the letters only. The mark scheme gives one correct letter for each of Questions 1 to 34 and two letters for each of 35 to 37. There are no alternative answers and no notes on partial credit.
2. Count one mark per correct letter. For Questions 35 to 37, one right letter and one wrong letter scores 1 out of 2.
3. Check what you shaded, not what you meant. The answer sheet must show one letter for Questions 1 to 34 and two for 35 to 37. Mark from your transferred answers if you practised the transfer.
4. Sort every wrong answer by section. A miss in Questions 1–14 points to a vocabulary gap (numbers, times, body parts, weather). A miss from Question 20 onwards may mean you chose an option because one of its words was spoken, without checking the whole sentence.
5. Replay the audio for every miss and note the exact Spanish phrase that gave the answer. Build a vocabulary list from those phrases.

Sit 0530/12 as a timed mock

The recording sets the pace on a listening paper: you hear everything twice, with reading time before each exercise and pauses where the paper marks them, and you can’t speed it up or slow it down. What you control is how you use the gaps.

Stage	Questions	Time
Recordings, reading time and pauses	1–37	About 44 minutes, set by the recording
Transfer answers to the answer sheet	All	6 minutes
Total		About 50 minutes

• Before each exercise: read every option in the reading time and predict the vocabulary (numbers, places, food, weather).
• First hearing: mark a provisional answer. Second hearing: confirm it or change it.
• For Questions 35–37: cross out statements as soon as you hear them contradicted, so you are left with the two true ones.
• Transfer time: shade carefully, and check you have two letters for each of the last three questions.

Other May/June 2026 0530 papers

• 0530 Paper 22 (Reading)
• 0530 Paper 42 (Writing)

Practise and download

• Download 0530/12 and its mark scheme on the Learning Portal →
• All 0530 May/June 2026 papers: overview and marking patterns
• Try a free IGCSE Spanish quiz

Need help with a 0530 topic? Book a free trial lesson with an IGCSE Spanish tutor →

Frequently asked questions

What was on 0530 Paper 12 May/June 2026? +

Six listening exercises: a dance class with a Mexican friend (8 picture questions), a countryside excursion announcement (6 picture questions), Elena and Pablo on five places to stay (5 matching questions), an interview with Alberto, who designs work uniforms (9 questions), an interview with Felipe, a school canteen cook (6 questions), and Sara's lost ring (3 questions with two answers each).

How many marks is 0530/12 and how long is it? +

It has 37 questions worth 40 marks and lasts about 50 minutes, including 6 minutes at the end to transfer your answers to the multiple choice answer sheet.

Why are there 37 questions but 40 marks on 0530/12? +

Questions 1 to 34 need one letter each. Questions 35, 36 and 37 each need two letters, and each correct letter scores one mark, so those three questions are worth 2 marks each.

Is there a transcript for 0530/12 May/June 2026? +

No transcript comes with the 2026 Spanish listening set, so this guide is based on the question paper and the mark scheme, which gives only the correct letters. To practise properly you need the audio as well.

What were the answers to Questions 35 to 37 on 0530/12? +

Question 35 was B and D, Question 36 was A and E, and Question 37 was C and E. Each pair is worth 2 marks, one for each correct letter.

Where can I download 0530/12 May/June 2026 and its mark scheme? +

Both are free to download and print on the Tutopiya Learning Portal, on the Cambridge IGCSE Spanish 0530 past papers page.

Ready to Excel in Your Studies?

Get personalised help from Tutopiya's expert tutors. Whether it's IGCSE, IB, A-Levels, or any other curriculum — we match you with the perfect tutor and your first session is free.

Book Your Free Trial