Hello Exam Seekers,

It’s been a while since I post something about the C1 Advanced (former CAE), but I decided to update some old content before bringing anything new. I wanted to check if the exams were all up to date and if I could add an extra tip for you!

The most recent posts about the C1: Advanced were about the Reading and Use of English, the Writing, and the Speaking Exam.

I divided the Speaking Exam into 3 parts, so check them out:

• Part 1: Interview;
• Part 2: Long Turn;
• Part 3-4: Collaborative Task and Discussion.

The Reading and Use of English Exam is divided into 7 parts:

• Part 1: Multiple-Choice Cloze;
• Part 2: Open Cloze;
• Part 3: Word Formation;
• Part 4: Key Word Transformation;
• Part 5: Multiple Choice;
• Part 6: Cross-Text Multiple Matching;
• Part 7: Gapped Text;
• Part 8: Multiple Matching.

And the Writing Exam is divided into 2 parts:

• Part 1 (Compulsory Question)
• Part 2 (Situationally Based Writing Task): Letter/E-mail, Proposal, Report, and Review.

The Reading and Use of English is much longer than the Speaking Exam, but it is as long as the Writing Exam. You have 1 hour and 30 minutes to answer a total of 56 questions divided into the 8 parts mentioned above.

The texts provided in the exam come mostly from newspapers and magazines, journals, books (fiction and non-fiction), promotional and informational materials. You have about 3,000–3,500 words to read in total. So let’s talk about the first part.

Part 1: Multiple-choice cloze

This part is divided into 2 pages. On the first page, you have a text with 8 numbered gaps, each of which represents a word or phrase. On the second page, there are the possible answers for each of the gaps. You have to choose one of the four alternatives (A, B, C or D). These possible answers are probably related to vocabulary (idioms, collocations, shades of meaning, phrasal verbs, fixed phrases, etc.). You get 1 mark for each correct answer.

Above, you can see the mock test provided by Cambridge on their website. This is a short text about black bears. You should read this text and try to fill in the gaps.

As I mentioned before, this test takes up to 1 hour and 30 minutes, so sometimes you don’t have much time to read and try and guess the answer without looking at the ones provided. Since this is a practice, let’s try!

The first sentence is: After years studying North America’s black bears in the (0) …….. way, wildlife biologist Luke Robertson felt no closer to understanding the creatures.

As you can read above, we need an adjective to complete this sentence. Why? Well, what can you write before the word way? The word “way” is a noun, the words that can come before the noun are articles and adjectives, but in this case, it is definitely an adjective to qualify the type of way the bears live.

We could think of “natural”, “traditional”, etc., so the possibility is still too open. We need to reduce the possibilities, then you go to the options provided:

Example:  0         A straight        B common         C everyday        D conventional

By looking at the options, you know that “everyday way” and “straight way” don’t match. Remember that we thought about “traditional” and “natural”? The word that fits best what we thought about is “conventional”. And that is the answer.

He realised that he had to (1) …….. their trust.

As you can read here, we need to complete the sentence with a verb. We are talking about a man who was studying bears and he needed something so that he could get closer and study them. What kind of verb matches the word “trust”. I would put “gain” for example, but I need to read the options:

1         A catch         B win         C achieve         D receive

Just by looking at the options you know which word fits best right? A synonym for “gain” is “win“. And there is your answer.

The exam follows this structure: read the sentence, try to guess the answer, look at the options given, analyze and choose the option you think matches. Simple, right? Well, here are the options for you to practice:

2          A perception      B awareness          C insight               D vision
3          A Opposite          B Opposed             C Contrary            D Contradictory
4          A care                  B bother                 C desire                D hope
5          A concludes        B disputes             C reasons              D argues
6          A misguided       B misled                C misdirected       D misinformed
7          A error                B doubt                  C illusion              D impression
8          A expand            B spread                 C widen                 D extend

Try and do it by yourselves, then check the answers below to find out your mark. But don’t go and look for the answers before completing the gaps above.

I hope that these tips have helped you with practicing the exam. Next week there will be more about the Reading and Use of English of C1: Advanced. However, if you still have questions about this part, leave a comment in the comment section below.

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Have a great week,
Patricia Moura

UPDATED: April 14th, 2021

OBS: All samples provided by Cambridge.

ANSWER KEY – Part 1

1. B
2. C
3. C
4. A
5. B
6. B
7. C
8. D