I took 4-5 weeks of classes at Lusa last summer and will be taking more this summer (the intensive group classes). I very much enjoyed them.
I would say, however, that while they teach you the materials for the A1-A2, etc levels, you have only the one week to absorb the material and move on to the next level. Many students ended up dropping back or out all together because they couldnāt keep up. Further, you do not get an awful lot of chance to speak (depending on class size) nor do you get a lot of practice with listening to dialogs. These are both large aspects of the test. As others have pointed out, even if you learned the materials, speaking it and understanding spoken Portuguese are the most difficult aspects for most and take a lot of practice. While not impossible to take and pass the test after a few weeks of classes, I think that very few could manage that.
Since last summer, I have been using PracticePortuguese and taking once a week classes with a tutor through Preply and feel confident enough to try the test this summer (July 20).
One last practical problem is that they only offer the test about once a month so scheduling a test in tandem with your classes is kind of tough.
Best of luck to everyone!
