Order! Order! Cambridge exams Reading and Use of English papers

How many papers are there in the Cambridge B2 First and C1 Advanced exams? Do you know what each paper is worth in terms of your overall score? Of course, there are four papers. Three of them are worth 20% each and one of them is worth 40%. How strange! If I had asked the same questions prior to 2015 the answers would have been different. Then there were five papers all worth 20%.

So what happened? Well, in 2015 Cambridge decided to merge two of the papers, Reading and Use of English. So now this one paper is worth nearly half the marks. So, it must be really long, right? Actually no it isn’t, relatively speaking. In the B2 First it takes 75 minutes and in the C1 Advanced it takes 90 minutes. The Writing paper in the B2 First is longer, and in the C1 Advanced it’s the same length. But it’s only worth half as many marks.

In total, the B2 First exam last about three and a half hours, and the C1 Advanced lasts about four hours. So these papers take up just over a third of the exam and represent 40% of the marks, which to be fair is almost proportional. But the timing relative to the Writing paper does indicate that time pressure is a factor. The paper is long and tiring and all candidates should follow very exact timing for each task, proportional to the marks. They need to be really disciplined with time. If the Speaking paper is a sprint, the Reading and Use of English paper is a marathon.

In the B2 First you have to answer 52 questions in 75 minutes. That’s less than a minute and a half per question. In the C1 Advanced you have to answer 56 questions in 90 minutes. That’s about a minute and a half per question. Now here’s the thing. In all exam formats you can choose the order you do the tasks in. There are seven tasks in one exam and eight in the other. There’s no separation between the Reading and Use of English tasks. So as you can imagine, having worked in exam preparation in teaching and publishing for many years, I have been asked countless times about the best order to do the tasks in.

Hang on! Rewind please! Actually, it’s not true. Hardly any candidates have asked me about this. Isn’t that strange? But there are stranger things. Not many textbooks deal with this aspect of the exam, and not so many teachers talk about it either. Here’s a short video about the B2 First I did a little while back on this very subject.

Here's a link to the TikTok video for the C1 Advanced version.

So, I’d like to broach the subject today in this blog and see if we can come up with a few ideas. There are a few points we need to bear in mind to define some effective strategies:

• Some of the questions are awarded one mark and others get two marks
• In some of the tasks you need to write and others are multiple choice
• Most candidates will have tasks which they do better than others 
• The paper is long and tiredness could be a factor
• Time management is key to success in this paper
• In the B2 First you need to read around 2,200 words
• In the C1 Advanced you need to read around 3-3,500 words

Looking at these points and taking into account the time pressure it’s pretty obvious that we should at least be considering a strategy for the order we do the tasks in. But what are the strategies? Well the first one is pretty simple. Ignore it and just do the tasks in order. The most important keys to success are time management and preparation, not the order. If you are disciplined with time management and sufficiently well prepared then the order you do the tasks in isn’t a major factor. I agree with this view to a large extent. 

However, all candidates are different and there are good reasons for at least thinking about some possible alternatives. In the video I mention the possibility of doing your best ones first, or doing the ones that require writing first, among other options. Here, there are two strategies I’m going to suggest, but I’m sure other teachers have good ideas too. Here is our first strategy suggestion for the order. It comes from one of the ideas in the video. 

• Follow this task order for the B2 First exam: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1. 
• Follow this task order for the C1 Advanced exam: 2, 3, 4, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8

Why? This way you do the tasks which require writing first. If you are rushed for time you can fill in the multiple choice ones more quickly than ones where you write. And if you got really stuck for time you could guess the multiple choice ones. There are some variations on this but you get the idea. Ok, here is our second strategy for the order to do the tasks in.

• Another possible order for the B2 First tasks: 4, 5, 6, 2, 3, 1, 7. 
• Another possible order for the C1 Advanced tasks: 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 8

Why? You do the tasks with two marks per answer first. That way, while you are still fresh you work on questions and tasks which are awarded more marks. 

In any case, I would like to reiterate that, whichever strategy you choose, it will never be as important a strategy as time management which is in proportion to the marks awarded. For example, Part 6 in the C1 Advanced is awarded two marks per question, but there are only four of them, so don’t spend more time on it than other tasks with eight questions and marks. You should spend the same time on all tasks with eight marks.

As a final point, it could be argued that task order is more relevant to the B2 First exam than the C1 Advanced, because of the distribution of the scoring. Anyway, that’s enough for now. I’d really like to know what both teachers and candidates think about this. Could you let me know what you think? Why not post a comment to tell me what you would do? We can all learn from each other. 

PASS courses are currently available for both Cambridge B2 First and C1 Advanced. Bye for now!