Oxford

CPE
Entry Test

Mark Harrison

2
 CPE ENTRY TEST: AN OVERVIEW

Timing: 1 hour 30 minutes

Part Task Type Number of Number of Test Format Similar tasks in

and Focus questions marks revised CPE

1 Open cloze 15 15 A modified cloze text Use of English

containing 15 gaps. Part 1
Grammatical /
lexico-grammatical

2 Word formation 10 10 A text containing ten gaps. Use of English

Each gap corresponds to Part 2
Lexical a word. The stems of the
missing words are given
beside the text and must be
transformed to provide the
missing word.

3 Four-option multiple- 12 12 Two modified cloze texts, Reading Part 1

choice lexical cloze from a range of sources.
Each text contains six gaps
Idioms, collocations, and is followed by six four-
fixed phrases, option multiple-choice
complementation, questions.
phrasal verbs,
semantic precision

4 Gapped text 7 14 One text from which Reading Part 3

paragraphs have been
Cohesion, coherence, removed and placed in
text structure, jumbled order after the text.
global meaning Candidates must decide
from where in the text the
paragraphs have been
removed.

5 Four-option 6 12 One text with six four-option Reading Part 4

multiple choice multiple-choice questions.

Content / detail,
opinion, attitude,
tone, purpose,
main idea, implication,
text organisation
features
(exemplification,
comparison, reference)

Reproduced by permission of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate

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 CONTENTS

Entry Test Overview 2

Part 1 4

Part 2 5

Part 3 6

Part 4 8

Part 5 10

Answer Sheets 12

Answer Key 14

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 PART 1
For questions 115, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space.
Use only one word in each space. There is an example at the beginning (0). Write your answers in
CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 A S

Is Honesty The Best Policy?

R
as
adical honesty therapy, (0) it is known in the US, is the latest thing to be
held up as the key to happiness and success. It involves telling the truth
(1) the time, with no exceptions for hurt feelings. But this is not as easy as it
(2) sound. Altruistic lies, (3) than the conniving, self-aggrandising variety, are
an essential part of polite society.

We all lie (4) mad. It wears us (5) . It is the major source of all human stress,
says Brad Blanton, psychotherapist and founder of the Centre for Radical Honesty. He has become
a household (6) in the US, where he spreads his message via day-time television talk
shows. He certainly has his work cut out (7) him. In a recent survey of Americans, 93
per cent (8) to lying regularly and habitually in the workplace. Dr Blanton is typically
blunt about the consequences of (9) deceitful. Lying kills people, he says.

Dr Blanton is adamant that minor inconveniences are (10) at all compared with the
huge benefits of truth telling. Telling the truth, especially after hiding it for a long time,
(11) guts. It isnt easy. But it is better than the alternative. (12) , he believes,
is the stress of living in the prison of the mind, which (13) in depression and ill health.
Your body stays tied up (14) knots and is susceptible to illness, he says. Allergies, high
blood pressure and insomnia are all (15) worse by lying. Good relationship skills,
parenting skills and management skills are also dependent on telling the truth.

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 PART 2
For questions 1625, read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines
to form a word that fits in the space in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0). Write your
answers in CAPITAL LETTERS on the separate answer sheet.

Example: 0 R E F E R E N C E

The DICTIONARY of NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Just over one hundred years ago, the last volume of a tremendous work of
reference entitled The Dictionary of National Biography rolled off
(0) REFER
the printing presses. (16) , this 21-volume shelf-filler may ADMIT
not immediately sound like the most thrilling read in the world. As
entertainment, you might imagine it ranks some way below a
(17) autobiography. But you would be very, very wrong. POLITICS

The DNB, like the Oxford English Dictionary, is one of the great monuments to
British culture and also a hugely enjoyable work in its own right. It is, quite simply,
an (18) dictionary of potted biographies of all the notable men and ALPHABET
women who had lived in Britain since the year dot. It was produced between
1885 and 1900, and it remains (19) an achievement of the Victorian EMPHASIS
period, richly redolent of 19th century confidence and (20) , energy CAPABLE
and optimism. It is also a monument to the enormous variety of the British
national character, and the dictionary is immeasurably (21) by this RICH
aspect. There are not only great statesmen, generals, writers, but also hundreds
of wonderfully (22) characters, who you can discover only by leafing COLOUR
idly through a volume of the DNB on a wet afternoon down at your local library.

The way in which the DNB was produced was very British too: on a shoestring,
out of sheer dedication, and with no state (23) whatsoever. It was the INTERFERE
private endeavour of a group of (24) , scholars and freelance ENTHUSE
journalists, as (25) to, for instance, the Austrian equivalent, produced OPPOSE
under the oppressive auspices of the Imperial Academy of Vienna.

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 PART 3
For questions 2637, read the two texts below and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best fits each
gap. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Al Gross Inventor
AL GROSS, WHO DIED IN 2001 IN ARIZONA, US, aged 82, was the inventor of the walkie-talkie
and the telephone pager, and devised the essential technology used in cordless and mobile
telephones. Another of his inventions, the lightweight ground-to-air transmitter, was used to great
(26) by Allied troops during the Second World War. (27) another, the two-way
wrist-watch transmitter, (28) the eye of the cartoonist Chester Gould, who gave it to Dick
Tracy. In 1948, the comic strip detective began his career as a crime fighter with the help of a two-
way wrist radio.

But Gross himself was too far (29) his time to make much money from his electronic
inventions. When, in 1949, he suggested that his pager could be of great assistance to the medical
profession, doctors (30) that the beeping devices would upset their patients, and might
interrupt their (31) of golf. Today, there are more than 300 million pagers in use around
the world.

26 A service B effect C outcome D consequence

27 A Besides B Even C Quite D Yet

28 A grasped B hooked C caught D seized

29 A beyond B in front of C ahead of D prior to

30 A protested B resisted C dissented D opposed

31 A laps B rounds C circuits D courses

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Intelligent Chickens

lthough chickens might not (32) most peoples list of clever animals,

A their particular abilities can sometimes be surprisingly impressive. For example,

they can (33) to a challenge. Readers may be impressed by the chicken
that learnt to peck a key to (34) access to a perch suspended over a tank of
water. It then crossed the perch, pulled a string three times to unlock a door, turned right
at a T-junction, and jumped across water to reach a nestbox.

However, this is a crude anthropomorphic example of animal intelligence. In fact most

animals can be trained to perform (35) complex tasks with the promise of a
food reward. Dr Christine Nicol of the University of Bristol trained the performing chicken
to (36) just this point. She says that it is not possible to measure intelligence
on a single scale. However, what has impressed her most about chickens is how they
can teach and learn. Hens, it seems, recognise when their chicks eat the wrong thing,
and intensely peck and scratch at better foods to demonstrate correct conduct. They are
also, she says, rather good at (37) new behaviours by watching each other.

32 A lead B cap C mount D top

33 A meet B rise C equal D handle

34 A take B gain C land D hold

35 A presentably B suggestively C seemingly D externally

36 A prove B clinch C stamp D bear

37 A bringing off B picking up C catching on D making out

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 PART 4
You are going to read an extract from a novel. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract.
Choose from the paragraphs AH the one which fits each gap (3844). There is one extra paragraph
which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

Trip to Tonbridge
Lisa was frantic to come up with someone she
41
could visit. A girl called Buzz she had once met was
the only person she could think of. She had had a But when she reached the point where the road
letter from Buzz some months before, saying she curved, she found she had to cross a wooden
was living alone in a Volkswagen van in a field bridge over a wide and noisy river, and on the other
outside Tonbridge. She had invited Lisa to visit. Just side, around the corner, there wasnt in fact a bus
turn up. Any time. Lisa searched frantically for the stop at all, but the ruins of a dimly lit medieval castle
letter. It contained a list of directions. that no one, no one at all, could forget to mention.
38 Lisa turned abruptly and began to walk back the
way shed come. She kept walking until she had
Lisa felt confident the right one would reveal itself walked right out through the other side of the town.
to her.The train journey might jog it into place. She She walked past a church and then the road sloped
gave up on her search for the letter and prepared up a hill.
to be away for up to a week. She packed a bag and
42
left a note for her mother. The train to Tonbridge
took just under an hour. Lisa spent the entire Despite this doubt, she carried on, until there were
journey matching buses with numbers until she no more street lights. The hill, with its overgrown
began to feel sick with the effort. She decided that hedges, now lay shrouded in an eerie night. So she
once she had got off the train, everything would traced her way back towards the church.There was
come back to her. a pub near it with warm, orange light seeping
39 through its windows.
43
But when Lisa handed in her ticket and went out
into the station forecourt, there was nothing in sight Lisa went over and peered through a window. The
that looked even remotely familiar. She stood glass was frosted and gave nothing away. She was
dolefully on the concrete strip of pavement and about to edge her way through the doors when a
wondered which way she should go.There wasnt a contingent of bikers roared to a halt in the car park
bus in sight.The people who had travelled with her and began to dismount. Lisa flattened herself against
disappeared into taxis and waiting cars and were the wall of the porch and, as they got off their bikes,
sped away. she slipped away around the side of the pub. Once
40 on the safety of the road, she resumed her walk
back into the town centre.
Lisa turned away from it and continued to walk
44
down the hill, which soon evened out into a straight
high street of shops, all closed up for the night. In the The more she thought about it, the more convinced
distance, she could see that the road twisted away she became that that was true. And she knew what
out of sight. it was going to be. She would meet someone on the
train. Someone with whom she could mark this day
as the beginning of the rest of her life. Someone to
fall in love with.

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A She imagined Buzz sitting inside with a drink F It was almost utterly deserted now. She
and a table covered with packets of cheese- stared wistfully into the faces of the
and-onion crisps. She longed to see her occasional passers-by. Mostly young
smiling, freckled face, and her twinkling eyes couples wandering aimlessly hand in hand.
clogged almost shut with mascara. She There was no one scruffy or wild enough to
imagined her at a table of men all vying for look as if they were a friend of Buzzs. Lisa
attention. clutched the return ticket lying deep in the
bottom of her pocket, and headed for the
station. The last train to London didnt leave
B Lisa had to accept that it was unlikely now
until ten to ten and she sat down on a bench
anything was going to occur to change this
to wait. Something good has to happen,
day from the failure that it was. She kept her
she told herself.
head down as she wandered out. She was
ashamed to be back there again so soon.
G Get a train from Charing Cross, it began. She
remembered that. She could remember the
C And then she felt sure she remembered. Get
rhythm of the directions but not the actual
off the train, go down a hill, round a corner
words. Get a train from Charing Cross, get
and there will be a bus stop. She repeated
off at Tonbridge, walk into the tum te tum
this to herself over and over as she walked
the town centre? the bus station? Get the
on, frightened that these valuable directions
number something bus, up a hill, get off,
would slip away now that shed finally got a
climb over a gate and theres a field. Get the
hold of them.
number 9 bus? The number 19 bus? The 92?

D Lisa asked someone the way to the centre of

H It was possible this might have been the one
town, and was pointed wordlessly down the
Buzz had meant in her letter, but if it was the
sharp slope of a hill where almost
one with the field off it, then why would she
immediately she came upon a bus stop. Her
have told her to catch a bus when there was
heart leapt as she scanned the timetable, but
no bus or bus stop?
there were so many buses listed and with
such foreign-sounding destinations that she
felt sure it couldnt be the right stop.

E She started to convince herself that she had

made this journey before. That she would
know her way to the tobacconist and the
sweetshop and the park in the centre of
town, like a man in a film she had once seen.
The man, who had lost his memory during
the war, was astounded to find he knew his
way around a sleepy, sepia-coloured village.
It emerged that it was the village he had been
born in.

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 PART 5
You are going to read a magazine article. For questions 4550, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which
you think fits best according to the text. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

SIMPLE its all in the mind

TONY BUZAN IS HIS OWN BEST ADVERTISEMENT earth is the only one that is blue. At that point I wondered
when he claims that his latest book can teach you not only who was the fool the eight-year-old slow learner or the
how to be brilliant with words, but also to be fitter, live university lecturer. If we had measured the process by
longer and be happier. He has transformed himself from a which the child had reached his answer instead of the
promising but not outstanding schoolboy into a man with expected response we would have realised the beautiful,
an IQ at genius level, who has contributed to more than 80 sophisticated intelligence behind it.
books on the brain and is consulted by universities,
Identifying and developing this kind of undervalued
business organisations and governments. Some 250
intelligence is Buzans mission. His starting point is that all
million people worldwide have already benefited from his
people have the potential to excel if they can only rid
Mind Maps, a diagrammatic learning tool that helps the
themselves of the barriers placed in their way by
brain to store and recall information.
upbringing, education and societys belief systems and
In his latest book, Head First, subtitled, 10 ways to tap into expectations. The first obstacle to overcome is lack of self-
your natural genius, he redefines intelligence to include belief. Buzan describes how his marks in maths soared at
not only the familiar verbal, numerical and spatial secondary school after he was told he was in the top one
benchmarks measured by IQ tests, but other skills such as per cent of the population in the subject. I realised that
creative, social, spiritual and physical intelligence, to what I thought about my ability in a subject affected how
which he gives equal weight. Developing these, he claims, well I did. The second hurdle is the conviction most of us
will bring confidence, self-awareness and personal have that certain skills art, music and numerical ability
fulfilment. And with this transformation will come are gifts from heaven, conferred only on the naturally
physical benefits less stress, a stronger immune system talented few. Buzan disputes this, claiming that all we have
and even a longer life. It is estimated that we use around to do is learn the appropriate alphabet. If we can learn to
one per cent of our brain, so there is plenty of scope for copy, he insists, we can learn to draw. It is the same with
improvement. I have fallen into the usual traps of music. The most sophisticated musical instrument is the
thinking that IQ was the be-all and end-all, that being human voice. Many people think they cannot sing. But
academic was better than being artistic and that art and everybody sings without realising it. Its called talking.
music were unteachable gifts, admits Buzan, 58. Bit by bit, Listen to somebody speaking a foreign language of which
I have come to know better. This book is a compact history you know no vocabulary; it is pure music. Buzans third
of my revelations. lesson is the recognition that we are all intelligent;
otherwise, we could not survive. There is only one true
The first moment of truth came when Buzan was at
intelligence test, he says, and that is life on planet Earth.
primary school. After scoring 100 per cent in a nature test,
Sitting in a room answering questions is not as difficult as
he found himself top of the A-stream. His best friend
survival. Every day, we are confronted with new problems
knew far more about ecology than Buzan, but was bottom
that we learn to handle.
of the D-stream. That started me wondering. Later, I
became aware that many of the so-called intelligent people Head First offers a template for each of the 10 kinds of
I knew did not seem very bright at all. They were brilliant intelligence, including a definition, an outline of its
at words and numbers, but not particularly interesting to benefits and lots of exercises. Think of each of your
be with, or happy with themselves or even successful. I multiple intelligences as a finger on a pair of wonderfully
began working with children and found that many were adept and agile piano-playing hands. You can play lifes
like my best friend. They were amazing, but they were not music with just two fingers, but if you use all 10 you can
able to express their brilliance at school. For instance, I play a concerto where each one supplements and enhances
spoke to a boy of eight who had been marked down in an the others. The Moonlight Sonata will sound OK with two
intelligence test for ticking a picture of the earth when fingers. But it sounds much better with 10.
asked which image was the odd one out sun, moon,
lemon or earth. When I asked him why he had done this,
he looked at me as if I were an idiot and said: Because the

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45 What is implied about Tony Buzan in the first paragraph?
A His views have caused a certain amount of controversy.
B Some of the claims he makes are rather exaggerated.
C It is hard to understand why he has been so successful.
D His theories are supported by his own life story.

46 What is said about the book Head First in the second paragraph?
A Buzan accepts that some people may disagree with some of the
views expressed in it.
B In it Buzan argues against beliefs he previously held.
C It suggests that IQ tests are of no real value.
D Its main focus is on the relationship between intelligence and
physical condition.

47 Buzan uses the boy who ticked a picture of the earth as an example of
A people who are more interesting than many people considered to
be intelligent.
B people whose intelligence is not allowed to develop fully.
C people with an attitude that prevents them from being considered
intelligent.
D people whose intelligence is likely to develop later in life.

48 Buzan thinks that one thing that prevents people from excelling is
A their habit of focusing too much on trivial aspects of everyday life.
B their belief that too much effort is required to acquire certain skills.
C their failure to realize how much natural intelligence they have.
D their tendency to be easily discouraged by the comments of others.

49 Buzan uses the Moonlight Sonata to illustrate his belief that

A his book can benefit everyone who reads it.
B some things are not as difficult to learn as they may seem.
C it is desirable but not essential for people to develop their
intelligence.
D his definitions of intelligence are simple enough for everyone to
understand.

50 Which of the following best summarises the view expressed by Tony

Buzan in the article as a whole?
A Too much emphasis in life is placed on how intelligent people are.
B Most people are inclined to underestimate their own intelligence.
C Intelligence is something that it is unwise to generalise about.
D Conventional views on what constitutes intelligence are inaccurate.

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ANSWER KEY

Part 1 Part 4

1 all 38 G
2 might / may 39 E
3 rather 40 D
4 like 41 C
5 out / down 42 H
6 name 43 A
7 for 44 F
8 admitted / confessed
9 being
10 nothing Part 5
11 takes / needs / requires
12 This / That / Worse
45 D
13 results / culminates
46 B
14 in
47 A
15 made
48 C
49 C
50 D
Part 2

16 Admittedly
17 politicians
18 alphabetical
19 emphatically
20 capability
21 enriched
22 colourful
23 interference
24 enthusiasts
25 opposed

Part 3

26 B
27 D
28 C
29 C
30 A
31 B
32 D
33 B
34 B
35 C
36 A
37 B

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 ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
From December 2002, candidates entering for the Certificate of Proficiency in English examination need
to fulfil certain entry requirements. The entry requirements include the option of an Entry Test, but CPE
candidates are only obliged to take the Entry Test if they do not have one of the other Cambridge EFL
qualifying results:

FCE Grade A or B (not grade C) or

CAE Grade A, B or C or

CPE Grade D or

IELTS Band score of 6.5 and above or

for those candidates who have not obtained one of the above qualifying results:

Band 2 or Band 3 in the CPE Entry Test.

Entry Test and IELTS results are valid for two years only. There is no time-limit on the validity of the other
qualifying results mentioned above.

RESULTS
Candidates receive a score in one of three bands:

Band 3 Qualifies for entry to CPE at the next session.

Band 2 Qualifies for entry to CPE at the next session, but recommended to
undertake at least one years further study.

Band 1 Does not qualify for entry to CPE.

To gain a Band 3, candidates need to achieve a score of approximately 40 marks.

To gain a Band 2, candidates need to achieve a score of approximately 25 marks.
Candidates achieving a score of less than approximately 25 marks are awarded a Band 1.
(Note that one mark is awarded for each correct answer in Parts 1, 2 and 3; two marks are awarded
for each correct answer in Parts 4 and 5.)

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