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C2 Proficiency study materials
C2 Proficiency study resources

C2 Proficiency: Reading and Use of English

C2 Proficiency · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Reading and Use of English

The Reading and Use of English paper is a single 1 hour 30 minute paper with seven parts and 53 questions. Parts 1–4 test lexical and grammatical control; Parts 5–7 test reading comprehension. The paper is worth 40% of the overall score, split equally between Reading and Use of English.

Core rules and concepts

  • Part 1 is an eight-item multiple-choice cloze with four options per gap; the distractors often fit grammatically but fail on collocation, idiom, or complementation.
  • Part 2 is an eight-gap open cloze; write one word per gap, usually a grammar word, linker, preposition, or phrasal-verb particle.
  • Part 3 has eight word-formation items; change the root in capitals into the form required by the sentence, checking part of speech, prefix, suffix, and spelling.
  • Part 4 contains six key-word transformations. Use the given word unchanged, write between three and eight words including that word, and keep the meaning of the first sentence. Each item is worth two marks.
  • Part 5 is six four-option multiple-choice reading questions; Part 6 is a gapped text with seven missing paragraphs and eight options; Part 7 is ten multiple-matching questions across one or more texts.

Worked example

Original: 'I'm sure he didn't mean to offend you.' Given word: INTENTION. A correct answer is: 'I'm sure he had no intention of offending you.' Reasoning: 'didn't mean to' is replaced by 'had no intention of + -ing'; INTENTION appears unchanged; the completed part is six words ('had no intention of offending you'), inside the three-to-eight limit; and the meaning is preserved. Changing INTENTION to 'intentions' or writing 'was not intending' would lose the form mark.

Traps

  • In Part 1, choosing an option because it sounds formal rather than because it collocates with the noun or verb.
  • In Part 2, writing two words or a contraction where one word is required.
  • In Part 3, producing the right part of speech but the wrong form, such as a plural or a missing negative prefix.
  • In Part 4, changing the given word, exceeding the word limit, or keeping the original syntax instead of restructuring.
  • In Part 6, matching a repeated keyword rather than following pronoun reference, substitution, and discourse markers.
  • In Part 7, matching identical words instead of recognising paraphrase.