What does the FCE exam involve?

What does the FCE exam involve?

FCE has five papers:
Reading
Writing
Use of English
Listening
Speaking 

Each of the written papers is returned to Cambridge for marking and assessment. The Speaking Test is conducted by two locally based examiners who examine you face to face. All examiners are accredited by Cambridge ESOL.

Reading (Paper 1), 1 hour 15 minutes

This paper assesses your ability to read and understand texts taken from fiction and non-fiction books, journals, newspapers and magazines. You are expected to be able to show understanding of gist, detail and text structure, and deduce meaning.

Writing (Paper 2), 1 hour 30 minutes

This paper assesses your ability to write non-specialised text types such as letters, articles, reports, compositions and reviews of 120-180 words covering a range of topics and target readers and also set texts.

Use of English (Paper 3), 1 hour 15 minutes

This paper requires you to demonstrate your knowledge and control of the language system by completing various tasks at text and sentence level. These include filling gaps, transforming words and phrases, and identifying errors in texts.

Listening (Paper 4), 40 minutes (approx.)

This paper assesses your ability to understand the meaning of spoken English, and to extract gist and meaning from spoken text. The texts are taken from a variety of text types including interviews, discussions, lectures and conversations.

Speaking (Paper 5), 14 minutes

The Speaking Test assesses your ability to interact in conversational English in a range of contexts. It contains four parts, including an interview section, individual long turns of about one minute, a collaborative task and a discussion. You are provided with stimulus material such as photographs and drawings. You will normally take the Speaking Test in pairs.