How we evaluate your tests

Reading, Use of English and Listening

These papers are marked as soon as you submit, using the marks per question of the real exam: one mark for most questions, two for each question in the long reading parts, and up to two for each key word transformation, one for each half of the answer. Every accepted answer in our key scores, and every question has an explanation.

Some rules follow the handbooks closely:

• Spelling in Use of English must be correct, as in the exam.
• B2 First Listening Part 2: minor spelling slips are accepted if the word is still recognisable, because the handbook says minor spelling errors are not penalised there. We allow one slip in an answer of 5–9 letters and two from 10 letters, never in short words or numbers.
• C1 Advanced Listening Part 2: correct spelling is expected, as in the exam; British and American spellings are both accepted.
• Key word transformations: a contraction counts as its full form (didn't = did not, two words; in B2 First, can't = cannot, one word, as the B2 handbook says), commas are ignored, and an answer over the word limit or with a changed key word scores zero.
• Listening sentence completion: a leading a, an or the is ignored.

One rule is more lenient than the exam. In C1 Advanced we accept a contracted form as its full form, although the C1 handbook expects full forms; a contraction counts as two words.

From raw marks to a scale score

Your raw marks for each skill are converted to an estimated Cambridge English Scale score using the anchor marks Cambridge publishes for its official practice tests (Converting practice test scores to Cambridge English Scale scores), with a straight line between anchors. A result below the lowest score the exam reports (122 for B2 First, 142 for C1 Advanced) is shown as "below 122" or "below 142". Cambridge says these tables apply only to its own practice tests and should not be used to predict precise live-exam scores, so treat any score within about 3 points of a grade boundary as uncertain. You can do the same conversion yourself with the FCE and CAE score calculators.

Expert evaluation of Writing and Speaking

Writing and Speaking get an expert evaluation in two stages. First, our scoring system assesses your answers against Cambridge's published assessment criteria for the exam. Then our expert reviews every evaluation before your results are released. Your Writing and Speaking results stay locked until then, and we email you as soon as they are ready to view. Reading, Use of English and Listening scores show straight away.

Writing

Each of your two texts is marked out of 20 on the four criteria Cambridge uses: Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language, each from 0 to 5. The assessment uses the task, your text, the level descriptors for the exam and our notes on what a full answer covers. You get the four marks, what you did well, what to improve and specific corrections. Writing feedback is labelled "Expert evaluation" on your results page.

Speaking

Your recordings are transcribed automatically by a speech-recognition service, and the transcript is assessed on the criteria Cambridge uses: B2 First uses Grammar and Vocabulary, Discourse Management, Pronunciation, Interactive Communication and Global Achievement; C1 Advanced separates Grammatical Resource and Lexical Resource. Two limits apply to a solo practice test:

• Pronunciation is an estimate. It is judged from the recording: how confidently the speech recogniser understood you, and delivery signals such as pace and pauses, so a poor microphone can lower it.
• Interactive Communication is estimated from how well you respond to the examiner's prompts, because there is no partner in a solo mock. In the real exam, Part 3 is a discussion with another candidate.

Your overall score

When all four papers of a full mock are marked, your overall score is the average of the five skill scores, rounded, as Cambridge calculates it, with your grade and CEFR level. You can check any combination with the score calculator.

How accurate is it?

Instant marking is exact for the answers in our key. Scale scores and the marks in your expert evaluation are estimates to show where you stand and what to work on; they cannot predict your official result. We have not yet compared our Writing and Speaking marks with marks from Cambridge examiners. If a mark looks wrong, tell us.

Last updated 15 November 2026.