Make your life easier by getting your Cambridge Proficiency C2 exam students to both read regularly in English outside of class and improve their knowledge of a wide range of vocabulary and topics with the articles in our PDF eBook.


We all know that reading regularly in English is one of the best ways to get our students to improve their level in English (it broadens their vocabulary, it reinforces their knowledge of grammatical structures etc...). The problem is getting our students to actually do it.

In every class I've taught, I've always stressed the importance to them to read as much as possible outside of class in English. Unfortunately even at C2 level, many still don't do it regularly.

If you are an English learner, click here to learn about the student version of this eBook.

Looking for other levels? Explore our B2 Level Reading eBook and C1 Level Reading eBook.

Why they don't

It can be easy to put the blame on our students for not doing this. And it is true that many of them (like all of us) can be either too lazy or are just too busy to get around to reading things in English outside the class.

But finding the right things to read to help them to continue progressing and to prepare for the topics they'll find used in the exam is actually quite difficult and time-consuming. Although they do now have unlimited access to literally billions of articles in English which they can read for free on the web, it can be difficult for learners at this level to find articles themselves which both broaden their vocabulary and are interesting to read. So, it's unsurprising the majority of them don't bother reading or only read articles on topics where they already have a good command of the English vocabulary used in them. Neither of which helps them in improving their level of the language and expanding their knowledge of the vocabulary used in a wide range of topics (which is incredibly important for doing well in the Cambridge Proficiency C2 exam).

It makes our lives more difficult

Although it may not seem like it is our problem as teachers whether our students regularly read in English outside of class or not, it is. The practice which our students do in English outside of class is as important as what they do with us in class for determining how quickly they progress and how well they do in the exam. The less they practise their English, the slower they progress and the longer it will take them to be ready for doing the exam.

To overcome this, I decided to create my own material for my students to read regularly and a method that ensured that they actually read it. Material which was not only right for their level, but also intellectually stimulating for them to read. It took me over a year to create all of this and to get it just right. And the result of all this hard work is this eBook.


What's in the eBook

To start with, this edition of the PDF eBook has been specifically designed to be used by teachers with their students. There are 70 printable reading exercises and each exercise includes:

  • A long text (none less than 1000 words)
  • A vocabulary exercise
  • A sheet for students to create sentences with the vocabulary
  • 5 questions for you to ask your students about the topic they've read

Click here to see a list of the titles of the text of the 70 reading exercises

The 70 texts in the eBook

  1. The intelligence of plants
  2. Superstitions and their strange origins
  3. Jordan: A spectacular country with unfortunately too few tourists
  4. The myth of meritocracy in education
  5. The comparative failure of online grocery shopping
  6. Can fashion be considered to be art?
  7. Ten inventions that radically changed our world
  8. What makes solo endurance athletes keep going?
  9. Is human habitation on Mars possible?
  10. The questionable validity and morality of using IQ tests
  11. Is wind power the answer for our future energy needs?
  12. The history of astrology
  13. Our changing spending habits at Christmas
  14. The importance of stories for us
  15. Is lab-grown meat a good thing for us?
  16. Is there any difference between men's and women's brains?
  17. ASMR: Making money through making very soft sounds
  18. Why many of us don't really work when at work
  19. The worrying disappearance of the right to free speech at British universities
  20. Changing the image of classical music
  21. The discovery which is reshaping the theory of our origins
  22. Sleep and its importance
  23. Wealth and happiness: Are the two connected?
  24. Punishing the parents for their kids underage drinking
  25. Reintroducing wolves and other lost species back into the wild in Britain
  26. Everest and death: Why people are still willing to climb mountain of the dead
  27. The debate on whether being overweight is unhealthy
  28. The importance of Conrad's 'The Heart of Darkness'
  29. The resistance to moving from steam power to electricity in manufacturing
  30. The significance of colour
  31. The work of artist Jackson Pollock
  32. Food imagery and manipulation
  33. The urgency of acting now to stop climate change
  34. Trying to reverse the declining demand for humanities majors in America
  35. How the tulip caused the world's first economic crash
  36. A review of the film "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"
  37. Our personality traits appear to be mostly inherited
  38. Is it right for people to go to Africa to hunt?
  39. The new palaces of the 21st century
  40. Understanding contemporary dance
  41. America's six best hiking trails
  42. Why the disappearance of livestock farming is good for us all
  43. Can we trust our memories?
  44. Why Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is still relevant today
  45. Customer complaints are good for business
  46. How the discovery of plate tectonics revolutionised are understanding of our planet
  47. Is there a conflict between saving the planet and reducing poverty?
  48. No more rock stars anymore
  49. Are the rich better than the rest of us?
  50. Globalisation and how societies have always evolved
  51. The reasons for the decline in wine consumption in France
  52. The merits of being a fair-weather sports fan
  53. The reason why homeopathic treatment does work with patients
  54. Is the gentrification of parts of cities a really bad thing?
  55. The origins of the metric system
  56. Do prisons work?
  57. All you need to know about depression
  58. The future of work
  59. The difficulties for us to colonise the galaxy
  60. The shredding of Banksy's "Girl With Balloon" at auction: Stunt or statement?
  61. Why a decline in the planet's biodiversity is a threat to us all
  62. Should we profile people in society to predict behaviour?
  63. A review of Vincent LoBrutto's biography of Stanley Kubrick
  64. Is free trade between countries a good thing?
  65. Is freshwater the biggest challenge we will face this century?
  66. The problems of relying on metrics to gauge performance
  67. Should you use the carrot or the stick with your children?
  68. Stefan Zweig: The life of a citizen of the world
  69. The evolution of science and thought throughout the ages part 1
  70. The evolution of science and thought throughout the ages part 2

Close the exercise list

In addition to this, you'll also find in the eBook a tried and tested method for using these reading exercises with your students.


How the eBook will help you and your students

The material in this eBook will improve your students' English in a number of different areas:

Improve their reading

Each reading exercise has a text that has been specifically written and adapted for people whose level of English is proficiency (or high advanced) or are studying for the Cambridge Proficiency (C2) exam. The texts cover a wide range of different topics (from science to art and everything in between) and this will broaden your students' knowledge of English vocabulary.

Improve their vocabulary

In addition to the text, each reading exercise contains a vocabulary exercise. In this, your students will learn the meaning of 7 carefully selected phrases and words from the text. These are words and phrases which I have noticed over that students at C2 level commonly don't know, don't use or use incorrectly.

Improve their performance in the Cambridge C2 exam

If your students are preparing for the Cambridge Proficiency C2 exam, having a good knowledge of diverse topics and the English vocabulary used in them will make doing an exercise on a topic a lot easier to do if they encounter it in the exam. And this eBook has articles on all the main topic areas which they'll find used in the Cambridge Proficiency C2 exam.

Make them remember the vocabulary

It would be pointless for your students to learn the meaning of these words and phrases and then forget what they mean. To ensure that they do remember them, each reading exercise comes with a sheet for your students to write a sentence in their own words for each of the 7 words and phrases they learnt in the vocabulary exercise.

It'll help their speaking as well

These reading exercises have also been designed to improve your students' ability and confidence in speaking in English as well. The topic of each reading exercise has been selected to make students interested in what they are reading about. Included in the eBook is a tried and tested method for using the reading exercises for getting your students to talk together in class, not just about the text, but about the topic in general. To help you do this, you'll find each reading exercise has a list of at least 5 questions which you can ask them after they have done it.

You'll be surprised how much your students' speaking in English will improve after doing these reading exercises for just a few months.

Make your life easier

The more your students read and speak in English, the quicker they improve. This makes happier students, happier classes and higher grades in exams. All of which makes your life as a teacher a lot easier.


Get your copy now

The cost for all of this material is €17 (around $20). When you take into consideration that the material is designed to be used for a full academic year and how much it will help both you and your students, it is cheap for the price.

I have been using this material and method with my own students for over five years now and I'm very happy with the results I've seen. Not only with seeing how it has improved their level of English (and consequently how well they do in the exam), but also seeing how they enjoy speaking together and expressing their opinions about the topics of the reading exercises that they have done.

Click the button below to buy your copy: