Reading Skills and Strategies in CPE

We are surrounded by texts of many different kinds and, whether we are conscious of it or not, we use different approaches to them.

To reflect this, the CPE Reading Paper includes a wide range of text types, and students need to be comfortable and familiar with the wide range of language they might encounter in everyday life. It is important to encourage them to read a variety of texts from different sources in order to prepare for the Reading paper.

How we read a text will depend on our purpose for reading: Do we need to find specific information? Are we reading for pleasure? Do we have to read for work or study purposes?, etc. Our purpose for reading will dictate the skills and strategies we use, e.g. skimming for gist, scanning for specific information, reading carefully for detail or quickly for the main point, etc.

In the CPE Reading Paper the tasks require the candidates to apply a wide range of reading skills and strategies. Students need to be familiar with a variety of task types, to understand what the question is asking for, and to use the appropriate strategies to answer the questions.

We respond to texts in different ways depending on the purpose of the text, the writer's point of view and the intended audience. We look automatically, in our own language, for clues as to text purpose and audience, i.e. whether it is intended to inform, entertain, advise, engage in discussion, etc. In order to fully understand what a text is doing we may need to interpret a message, assess the writer's tone and opinion, and analyse how language is used in a text or why it is used in a particular way.

Tasks in the CPE Reading Paper test students on their understanding of a whole range of features of a text, e.g. text purpose, writer's opinion, language function and style, the use of specific language as well as global message, etc. Students need to be able to analyse and interpret a complex (but generally accessible) text, at word, sentence and whole text level.

Our efficiency as readers is shown in the outcome of our reading: Do we find the information we want? Do we understand the attitudes and opinions of the writer or of people in a text? Do we have a global understanding of a long text? Do we understand the way a text is structured?

The texts and tasks in the CPE Reading Paper focus students on the outcome of their reading: Have they understood the tasks and applied the appropriate strategies to help them answer the questions? Have they understood the text in sufficient detail to answer the tasks correctly?

Reading Skills Activity

Part 1