CAE is a valuable qualification for anyone who wants to work or study abroad or to develop a career which requires language skills, including business, medicine, engineering and many other professions. CAE is also useful preparation for anyone who is working towards the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English.

The CAE examinations are based on realistic tasks, and indicate the ability to use the language in practical situations. Successful students are able to participate in meetings and discussions, expressing opinions clearly and are able to understand and produce texts of various types, including business letters and reports. They will also be aware of the different styles of English appropriate to different situations.

CAE has five papers
Reading | Writing | Use of English | Listening | Speaking

Each of the CAE written papers is returned to Cambridge for marking and assessment. The Speaking Test is conducted by two locally based examiners who examine students face to face. All examiners are accredited by Cambridge ESOL.

Reading (Paper 1) 1 hour 15 minutes
The Reading paper assesses students’ ability to read and understand a number of texts taken from books, newspapers and magazines. Students are expected to be able to show understanding of gist, main points, detail, text structure or specific information, deduce meaning or recognize opinion and attitude.

Writing (Paper 2) 2 hours
The Writing paper assesses students’ ability to write non-specialised text types such as letters, articles, reports and reviews for a given purpose and target reader, covering a range of topics. Responses are of about 250 words in length.

English in Use (Paper 3) 1 hour 30 minutes
In the English in Use paper, students are expected to demonstrate knowledge and control of the language system by completing various tasks at text and sentence level, based on authentic texts. This will include gap-filling, error correction, word formation, register transfer and text completion exercises.

Listening (Paper 4) 45 minutes (approx.)
The Listening paper assesses students’ ability to understand the meaning of spoken English and to extract detailed and specific information from the spoken text and to understand speakers’ attitudes and opinions. The texts are taken from a variety of text types including interviews, discussions, lectures and conversations.

Speaking (Paper 5) 15 minutes (approx.)
The Speaking Test assesses students’ ability to interact in conversational English in a range of contexts. It contains four parts, including an interview section, individual long turns, a collaborative task and a discussion. Students are provided with stimulus materials such as photographs and drawings.