Reading & Use of English: A Guide to the C2 Proficiency (CPE)

Philo and Sophia work through every part of the Reading and Use of English paper together

Reading and Use of English paper: 1 hour 30 minutes 7 parts · 53 questions · 72 marks Writing is separate — see our Essay Writing Guide

1The Seven Parts, at a Glance

Part 1

MC cloze · vocabulary

Part 2

Open cloze · grammar

Part 3

Word formation

Part 4

Key word transformation

Part 5

MC · long text

Part 6

Gapped text · 7 gaps

Part 7

Multiple matching

PhiloThe shape of this paper looks a lot like FCE's — same seven-part structure, roughly.

SophiaThe bones are the same, yes — but at this level the texts are denser, the vocabulary is rarer, and Part 6 has grown to seven gaps instead of six. Nothing here is testing basic comprehension anymore; it's testing precision and range.

2Parts 1–4: Vocabulary and Grammar

These follow the same mechanics as CAE — multiple-choice cloze, open cloze, word formation, and key word transformation — but expect genuinely rare vocabulary, idiomatic nuance, and grammar patterns that rarely appear in everyday speech.

Part 1 example Her critique, while (1) ____ in its precision, left little room for the nuance the subject demanded.

A ruthless
B surgical
C harsh
D exact

"surgical precision" is the strongest fixed collocation here — "ruthless" and "harsh" both carry the wrong connotation (cruelty rather than exactness), and "exact" would be redundant beside "precision."

3Part 5: Multiple Choice — Long Text

One long, often literary or essayistic text, with six four-option questions on detail, opinion, attitude, tone, purpose, and main idea — the same skills as CAE Part 5, applied to denser prose.

Strategy

At C2, tone and implication often matter more than stated fact. Ask not just what a sentence says, but what attitude it reveals — irony, understatement, and hedged criticism are common at this level.

4Part 6: Gapped Text

A long text with seven paragraphs removed (one more than at CAE), and eight options given. The extra gap means slightly less time per decision, so a systematic approach to cohesion clues matters even more.

Reading both directions

Every gap has clues before it and after it. A common mistake is checking only what comes before — but a pronoun, a time reference, or a contrasting idea in the paragraph after the gap is just as often the deciding clue.

Work through this part methodically rather than trying to hold the whole text's structure in your head at once.

5Part 7: Multiple Matching

A text (or set of short texts) with ten questions matching detail, opinion, attitude, or specific information — the paper's final part, and often the one candidates are most tired for.

Strategy

Since this part comes last, pace yourself through Parts 1–6 with a rough time budget in mind, so Part 7 isn't rushed. Ten questions is a fifth of the whole paper's questions.

6How Reading and Use of English Is Scored

Part 1

8 marks

Part 2

8 marks

Part 3

8 marks

Part 4

12 marks (2 per question)

Part 5

12 marks (2 per question)

Part 6

14 marks (2 per question)

Part 7

10 marks

That's 72 marks from 53 questions — the heaviest weighting of any level so far in Parts 4 to 6.