Observations of a Cambridge examiner: Preparing for Paper 1: the Reading Exam.

Well, the exam season is just around the corner and many of you are organizing your studies and preparing yourselves for the final stretch before the exams.


What advice can I as a Cambridge examiner give you at this time?

Basically, it's PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION!!
........and PRACTISE......
You can never do too much!

The Cambridge exams are as much about how to do the exams as how good your English is.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that their level of English is good; for example they have lived in an English-speaking country for a while and had no particular problems communicating while they were there, so they think that they will have no problem with the exam.
In my personal experience of helping to prepare people for these exams, it is very common for people to contact me about two months before the exam for help preparing them. This, frankly, is not enough time, unless the person has had prior experience with the exams and has been keeping up with their studies of grammar, vocabulary and expressions. Then, it is just a case of two months of intensive preparation and practice of the exam techniques, but if not, two months is not enough time to familiarize yourself and master everything needed for the exam in addition to the techniques.
For some reason the Advanced exam seems to be a popular choice for these people.

I will focus primarily on the Advanced exam, to talk about what is needed in each part of each paper, but the general idea is appropriate for each of the exams.

The first part we will focus on in this blog is the Paper 1: the Reading Paper. We will deal with all the other papers in the following blogs, in order of the exam Paper 2: the Writing Paper, Paper 3: the use of English paper, Paper 4: the Listening Paper and finally Paper 5: the Speaking Paper.
There is a lot of information and advice about how to do your best on the Cambridge Advanced exam. Good luck!!

Paper 1: the Reading Paper

The CAE Reading paper is designed to test the following reading skills: 

• ability to form an overall impression by skimming text

• ability to retrieve specific information by scanning text

• ability to interpret text for inference, attitude and style

• ability to demonstrate understanding of text as a whole

• ability to select relevant information required to perform a task

• ability to demonstrate understanding of how text structure operates

• ability to deduce meaning from context. 

Authentic texts are used for the CAE Reading paper and are edited as little as possible for the purposes of test construction. The texts are of a number of types, including giving information, expressing an opinion/making a comment, description, advice/instructions and narrative. One or more of these text types may be combined to form a composite text. Sources of texts include newspapers (broadsheet and popular), magazines, journals, non-literary books, leaflets, brochures, etc. Texts selected do not assume specialist knowledge of a subject.

Part 1: It is Multiple Choice with a focus on detail, opinion, tone, purpose, understanding the main idea, implication, attitude, how the text is organized, features such as exemplification, comparison and reference. There are three themed texts followed by two four-option multiple-choice questions on each text, thereby there are six questions in total.
A candidate at Advanced level should not only be expected to have a fairly wide vocabulary but also be experienced at working out the meaning of a word from the surrounding text if the word is unfamiliar.So this means that you should have an ability to understand the general meaning and important point of the text without being confused by the specific vocabulary and minor points which are there is distract you. Always read the questions carefully. It often helps to also work by eliminating answers which cannot be right as well as choosing the best answer.

Part 2: It is a Gapped Text with a focus on the text structure, cohesion and coherence and the ability to predict text development. It is a text from which paragraphs have been removed and placed in jumbled up order after the text, there are six questions. You must be able to decide from where in the text the paragraphs have been removed. Consequently, it is often necessary to consider large sections of the text, or even the overall organization, in order to reconstitute a particular part. Candidates often find this part of the paper the most challenging. It is vitally important that you read the whole of the text before attempting to answer the questions, so that you get a feeling for the entire passage, both its meaning and structure. It is also important that you pay close attention to the text, both before and after the gap.

Part 3: It is also a Multiple Choice with the focus being similar to Part 1 mainly on candidates’ detailed comprehension. However, it is one single text followed by seven four-option multiple-choice questions.It is necessary to read the complete text first and then go through the questions which work in order through the text.

Part 4: It is Multiple matching with the focus on specific information, detail, opinion and attitude. There is a text or several short texts preceded by multiple-matching questions. Candidates must match a prompt to elements in the text.there are 15 questions in total here. In general this part is not so complicated but the main problem is timing, it is always a good idea to read through the texts underlining important parts so if you have missed something out it is easier to find the information later, if not, you will have to re-read all the parts which is very time-consuming.

Recommendations for preparation for the Reading Paper:

When preparing for the CAE Reading paper, you should be reading for interest and

developing your own views on a wide range of topics. When reading, you should aim to identify the writer’s purpose and to distinguish different types of writing, e.g. factual, descriptive, argumentative, etc. You also need practice in recognizing main ideas, as this will help them anticipate the type of question that they may be asked. 

DOs and DON’Ts for CAE PAPER 1 – READING

DO: skim through each text and highlight any ‘key’ pieces of information.

DO: interact with the text and form an opinion on what you’re reading.

DO: underline important words in the question and make sure that you have a clear

understanding of their meaning.

DO: ensure that information is stated in the text, if the question refers to something that’s ‘said’

or ‘stated’ or ‘mentioned’.

DO: check that the answer you’ve chosen reflects all parts of the question.

DO: read around the part of the text that you think contains the answer, in order to be sure that

you haven’t missed anything important.

DO: leave difficult questions to the end of the task, and then come back to them.

DO: leave time to double-check your answers to challenging questions.

DO: read any subtitles because they’ll help set the context for the text.

DON’T: be put off by vocabulary you don’t know. Continue reading the text to see whether the

meaning becomes clear.

DON’T: attempt any question without reading it at least twice.

DON’T: try to answer questions without close reference to the text.

DON’T: assume that matching individual words or phrases in a question with the same or similar

words in the text means that you’ve located the answer to the question.

DON’T: spend too much time on any one part of the paper. 

For more advice go to: www.onestop-language.com