The Reading and Use of English (UOE) exam is one of the four exams that you will do when you take the Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE). Below you'll learn some essential information about the Reading/UOE exam (what the exam is, how long you have, what you need to pass etc...) and what the parts of this exam are and how they are different.
How many parts of the exam
In the Reading/UOE exam there are seven different parts/exercises in which there are questions to answer.
How much time you have
You have 1 hour and 15 minutes to do this part of the exam in both the paper-based and computer-based versions of the exam. But in this time if you do the paper-based exam you also have to fill in your answers on the answer sheet (which they will give you along with the question paper). This takes about 5 minutes to do (which you should do at the end of the exam). So in effect you have 1 hour and 10 minutes.
In the computer-based exam, you don't have to add your answers to an answer sheet. So if you do the computer-based exam, you have 1 hour and 15 minutes to answer the questions in this part of the exam.
The parts
Different formats & things to do
As I said above, there are seven different parts of the Reading/UOE exam. Each part of this exam is different in some way.
Some of the parts have multiple choice questions (where you are given a list of possible answers), while in others you have to decide the answer yourself.
In addition to the type of questions you will find, in the parts you will have to do different things. In one part for example, you have to rewrite the missing parts of sentences. In others, you have to decide what the missing words from a text are. And in others, you have to find the answers to questions from a piece of text.
What the parts are
Below I will explain what the format/structure of each of the seven parts is and what you have to do in each.
Part 1
In this first part of the exam you have to identify missing words in a text. There is a short text with eight gaps in it. For each gap you have to choose what the missing word is. This is a multiple choice exercise and you are provided with a list of four possible words for each of the gaps. Only one of these four is correct for the sentence where the gap is.
'Click here to see an example of part 1 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 2
Part 2 is similar to part 1 in that you have a short text with eight gaps in it and you have to identify what the missing word for each is. But unlike in part 1, you are not given a list of possible answers for each gap. Instead, you have to decide what each of the missing words is yourself.
'Click here to see an example of part 2 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 3
Like in both parts 1 and 2 you have to identify what eight missing words are in a short text with eight gaps in it. But unlike both of the other parts, you are provided with a word for each of the gaps (at the end of the line where each gap is). You have to modify this word (e.g. change it from a verb to adjective, use the negative form of it etc...), so that it makes sense in the sentence.
'Click here to see an example of part 3 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 4
In this part you have to rewrite a missing part of a sentence. There are six questions in which there are two sentences which mean exactly the same thing but written in different ways. One of the sentences is complete, while the other sentence below it has a part missing. You have to fill this missing part with between two to five words so that the sentences means exactly the same as the complete sentence above it. In the words you use in the gap, you have to use a specific word. The word you have to use is written between the two sentences.
'Click here to see an example of part 4 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 5
In this part of the exam you have to answer six questions about a long text. You have six multiple choice questions with four possible answers for each. The answer for each question is in the text, you just have to find it. The answers to each question will be found in the text in the same order as the questions. So, the answer to question one will be first in the text, the answer to question two with be second in the text and so on.
'Click here to see an example of part 5 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 6
In this part you have to add missing sentences to a long text. In the text there are six gaps where a sentence is missing. You are given a list of seven sentences (one of which you don't use in any of them). You have to decide from the context of the paragraph and the sentences either before or after the gap which one of these sentences is correct for each gap.
'Click here to see an example of part 6 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
Part 7
In this last part of the exam you will be given four (or sometimes five) short texts from different people talking about the same topic (e.g. photography) or an article separated into four (or five) distinct paragraphs. You will have to answer ten questions. In each of the questions you will find a sentence. You have to identify which of the four (or five) people or paragraphs says the sentence. In the texts/paragraphs they will use different words than what are used in the sentences in each question.
'Click here to see an example of part 7 of the Reading/UOE exam'.
They test different areas of English
Not only is each part different in some way in its format and what you have to do, but the parts have also been designed to test different areas of your English knowledge and abilities.
Each part could be testing:
1. Your knowledge of vocabulary:
Synonyms, uses of words and word/phrases structures (e.g. what prepositions are used with words or phrases).
2. Your knowledge of grammatical structures:
How to correctly structure a sentence and your ability to identify what type of a word (e.g. a verb, an adjective, a pronoun etc...) that a word is.
3. Your ability to use the context of a sentence and text to predict what a word or phrase means.
Knowing what area of English that a part of the Reading/UOE exam is testing you on, will help you to do the exam better. To learn what area of English each part of the Reading/UOE exam is testing you on, read our article on 'What the FCE Reading and Use of English Exam is Testing You on'.
How many points per question
The number of points you get for a correct answer depends on the part of the Reading/UOE exam. For some parts of the exam you will only get 1 point per question you have answered correctly. For other parts of the exam you will get 2 point per question you have answered correctly.
But there is one part which is different. For part 4, if you write all of the part of the sentence which is missing correctly, then you will get 2 points for the question. But if you only write a half of what missing from the sentence correctly (either the first half or the second half), then you will only get 1 point for the question.
Below I will tell you how many questions there are in each part of the exam and how many points you will get if you get a question right:
Part 1
Number of questions: 8
Points per question: 1
Part 2
Number of questions: 8
Points per question: 1
Part 3
Number of questions: 8
Points per question: 1
Part 4
Number of questions: 6
Points per question: 1 or 2
Part 5
Number of questions: 6
Points per question: 2
Part 6
Number of questions: 6
Points per question: 2
Part 7
Number of questions: 10
Points per question: 1
The percentage of the final mark it gives
The Reading/UOE exam contributes 40% of your final mark, so of the 4 exams you will do, this is the most important (the Speaking, the Writing and the Listening parts only contribute 20% each).
When you get your results for the First Certificate exam, you won't see a score for Reading /UOE, instead you will be given one score for your Reading and another score for your Use of English. And each of these contributes 20% to your final score.
Image of part of the Results Statement that candidates receive after doing the FCE exam. It shows the 5 different scores which candidates receive for the exam.
Both of these scores come from the Reading/UOE exam you will have done. The mark you get from parts 1, 5, 6 & 7 of the exam are what make up your Reading score and the mark you get from parts 2, 3 & 4 of the exam make up your Use of English score.
How much you need to pass
Like in all the parts of the FCE exam, to pass you need to get 60% or over of the possible points (which is equivalent to a 'Cambridge English Scale Score' of 160 or over).
Remember, you can still fail the Reading and/or Use of English parts of the exam (get less than 60% (160 points on the Cambridge marking system which you'll see on your results)) and still pass the FCE exam as long as you do well on the other parts of the exam and your average score for all of the parts of the exam is 160 points or over.