CONTENTS

A Detailed Guide to the Revised CPE

Paper 1 Reading

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14

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15

General Description
Sample Paper
Answer Key
Answer Sheet

PA P E R 1 R E A D I N G

General Description
Paper Format
The paper contains four parts.

Sources
Books (fiction and non-fiction), non-specialist articles from
journals, magazines and newspapers, promotional and
informational materials (e.g. advertisements, guide books,
manuals).

Length of Texts
Approximately 3000 words in total, excluding items and
rubrics.

Answering
Candidates indicate answers by shading lozenges on a
machine markable answer sheet.

Number of Questions
40.

Timing
1 hour 30 minutes.

Task Types
Lexical cloze, gapped text, multiple choice.

Marks
One mark is given for each correct answer in Part 1; two
marks are given for each correct answer in Parts 24.

Part

Task Type and Focus

Four-option multiple choice lexical cloze

Number of
questions
18

Three modified cloze texts (375500

words in total), from a range of sources.
Each text contains six gaps and is followed
by six four-option multiple choice questions.

Four themed texts, (600900 words in total),

from a range of sources.
Two four-option multiple choice questions
per text.

One text (8001100 words) from a range of

sources.
A text from which paragraphs have been
removed and placed in jumbled order after
the text.
Candidates must decide from where in the
text the paragraphs have been removed.

One text (700850 words) from a range of

sources.
Seven four-option multiple choice questions.

Idioms, collocations, fixed phrases,

complementation, phrasal verbs, semantic precision
2

Four-option multiple choice

Content/detail, opinion, attitude, tone, purpose,
main idea, implication, text organisation features
(exemplification, comparison, reference)

Gapped text
Cohesion, coherence, text structure, global meaning

Four-option multiple choice

As Part 2

Task Format

PA P E R 1 A N S W E R K E Y
Part 1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.

Part 4

Part 2
C
B
D
D
C
A
A
C
A
B
D
D
C
A
B
A
B
C

19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.

A
C
D
B
A
B
D
D

Part 3
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.

G
C
D
H
B
E
F

34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.

B
A
A
D
C
D
C