B2 First Reading & Use of English: task practice
Reading & Use of English is the paper where B2 First candidates lose the most marks, and usually to the clock rather than to grammar. The Use of English parts reward precise knowledge of collocation, prepositions and word families; the reading parts reward disciplined skimming and the habit of underlining the words that prove your answer. Each topic below takes one task type and drills it.
What this paper asks of you
- Lexical precision: collocations, fixed phrases, phrasal verbs and dependent prepositions.
- Grammatical accuracy in short spans: articles, auxiliaries, relative pronouns, comparatives, passives.
- Word families: turning a given root into the noun, adjective, adverb or negative form the gap needs.
- Paraphrase: recognising that two sentences say the same thing in completely different words.
- Reading for gist, so you can decide in seconds what a paragraph is broadly about.
- Reading for detail, so you can find the one clause that answers a question and ignore the rest.
- Text structure: how a writer signals contrast, example, result and reference across sentences.
- Attitude and opinion: separating what a writer reports from what a writer thinks.
- Timing discipline: leaving an item you cannot do, marking it, and returning with the time you saved.
- Transferring answers accurately, including spelling, when you work on paper.
Task types, one page each
- Multiple-choice clozeB2 First multiple-choice cloze practice: choose between four near-synonyms using collocation, fixed phrases and dependent prepositions, with strategy.40 questions
- Open clozeB2 First open cloze practice for Part 2: one word per gap, testing auxiliaries, relative pronouns, articles, prepositions and fixed grammar phrases.40 questions
- Word formationB2 First word formation practice for Part 3: build nouns, adjectives, adverbs and negative forms from a given root, with spelling rules, mistakes and answers.40 questions
- Key word transformationsB2 First key word transformation practice for Part 4: rewrite a sentence in two to five words using the key word, with worked strategy, traps and answers.40 questions
- Multiple matchingB2 First multiple matching practice for reading Part 7: match questions to sections by paraphrase, with scanning strategy, distractor traps and forty items.40 questions
Note
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