C1 Advanced · Reading & Use of English · Part 5
Read a longer text and choose the best answer (A–D) for each question.
A longer text with multiple-choice questions on it, in text order, and the difficulty is rarely comprehension. You will usually understand every sentence. What is hard is that three of the four options are also supported by something in the text — just not by the part the question is asking about.
The habit that fixes this: find the place in the text the question refers to, decide what it says in your own words, and only then read the options. Reading the options first primes you to go looking for confirmation, and there is always something that looks like confirmation.
At C1 the texts turn argumentative and the questions turn to implication. You will be asked what the writer suggests without stating, where their tone shifts, or what a particular phrase reveals about their attitude — and the answer is frequently spread across a paragraph rather than sitting in one line. Reference questions ("what does 'this' in line 30 refer to") reward slowing down rather than scanning.
Yes, in this part they do, which is useful for pacing — if you are hunting for question four's answer in the first paragraph, you have gone wrong somewhere. The final question is often about the text as a whole rather than a single line.
The paper has no per-part timing, so this is your decision — but the reading parts are where candidates run out of time, not the Use of English ones. Decide your split before the exam and practise sticking to it rather than working it out on the day.
