What’s the best order to complete Part 1 in CAE Advanced Cambridge exam

If you have ever taken a Cambridge exam, you know that time is always running against you. In order to avoid the panic attack, we have analysed the order you should complete the exercises in Part 1 (Use of English and Reading). In this way you will never run out of time. Scientifically proven, this is the best order to complete Part 1 in the CAE Advanced Cambridge exam. If you thought it was starting at 1 and finishing on 8, well we have a better idea.

Before we go into the nitty-gritty, here’s some important information that will help you organise better:

Total time for Part 1 of the CAE exam: 90 minutes (1.5 hours)

Total amount of questions: 56

Tasks/Parts: 8 – (Use of English:4 – Reading: 4)

Make sure you’ve read the 3 things you need to do before you take any Cambridge Exam. This will help you focus better and help you complete all your tasks.

Now we’re ready to jump into our suggestion to complete Part 1 of the CAE Advanced Cambrdige Exam.

THE ORDER

What we’re going to tell you here might not be the best piece of advice, but it works. Although you might be tempted to do Part 1, which is the Multiple Choice exercise, you need to hold on. Let us tell you why. Part 2, for example, the open cloze exercise, the one in which you need to fill in a word, will probably take you more time for two reasons. 1. It’s probably the hardest part of the test. 2. You need to think each answer through and then write it. This means that this task will take you the longest, whereas the multiple choice answers in Part 1 can be filled in (randomly) if you run out of time. So, your best bet is to start off with a task that requires these types of answers , but does not require much thinking.

With this logic in mind, we can categorise the answers that require a fill-in-the-blank type of answer to be completed first. So, our order to complete the Use of English section of the CAE Advanced Cambridge Exam Part 1 is, PART:

• 4: 12 minutes approx
• 2: 15minutes approx
• 3: 10 minutes approx
• 1: 10 minutes approx

THE DETAILS

Start off with Part 4. Try and complete it as quickly as possible. This part requires quite a lot of previous knowledge to complete, so you can say that this task is ‘you either know the answer, or you don’t’.

Then head off to Part 2. The requirements in terms of completion are very similar to Part 4, so try and think of logical answers and move on.

Part 3 is a fill in the blanks question, but it could seem a bit less complicated than the previous two. However, don’t underestimate this task since it’s very easy to lose marks in this one, if you’re careless.

Now you can head off to Part 1. Remember that in this Multiple choice exercise, there will usually be an option to which you might not know the meaning. Consider this option first when choosing the answer. Your logic might tell you that that might the answer because all the others don’t fit. However, make sure that there are no collocations or any other structure that might fit in. You can speed off in this part.

With regards to parts 5 to 8, you can complete them in any order you like. In fact, we’re sure you’ll have some extra time left. Use it to review.

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