What's in it?
In the Cambridge B2 Exam both the Reading and Use of English are part of the same exam. The total time for the exam is 1 hour 15 minutes. However, there are separate scores for each and the questions are listed from Part 1 to Part 7.
Reading & Use of English Exercises
Number of Questions
The complete Reading & Use of English exam has a total of 52 questions.
Use of English
Use Of English Part 1 Multiple-Choice Cloze
There are 8 questions in this part and each correct answer is one mark.
Use Of English Part 2 Modified Cloze Gap-Fill
There are 8 questions in this part and each correct answer is one mark.
Use Of English Part 3 Word Building
There are also 8 questions in this part and each correct answer is one mark.
Use Of English Part 4 Keyword Transformation
There are 6 questions in this part and each completely correct answer is two marks.
Reading Exercises
Reading Part 5 Multiple Choice
There are 6 questions in this part and each correct answer is two marks.
Reading Part 6 Paragraph Matching
There are 6 questions in this part and each correct answer is two marks.
Reading Part 7 Multiple Matching
There are 10 questions in this part and each correct answer is one mark.
Exam Tips
Be careful with your time
You should spend 30-35 minutes on the Use of English and 40-45 minutes on the reading.
Order of exercises
It is generally a good idea to do the Use of English exercises first as you can finish them more quickly. With the reading exercises do them according to how difficult you find them, with the most difficult exercise last.
One thing that will never change is that your answer sheet is king. With computer correction now used for much of the exam nobody can guess what those empty spaces on the answer sheet might have been so it very important to put an answer to each question if possible.
Remember too, if you do the paper-based exam that the 10 minute reminder at the end of the exam may be too late to start copying your answers . The 5 minute reminder certainly is and you will not get any extra time to finish copying all of your answers.