CEFR C1 · CAE · Listening
CAE Listening Practice
CAE Listening tests advanced (C1) listening — fast-paced interviews, complex monologues, opinion-based discussions. About 40 minutes, 30 questions across four parts. Each recording is played twice.
Duration: ~40 minFormat: 30 questions across 4 parts
CAE Listening: part by part
- Part 1 — Multiple Choice (6 questions): 3 short extracts (2 questions each). Conversations with two speakers.
- Part 2 — Sentence Completion (8 questions): one monologue. Fill 8 gaps with a word or short phrase.
- Part 3 — Multiple Choice (6 questions): one longer conversation between 2+ speakers, often a discussion.
- Part 4 — Multiple Matching (10 questions): 5 short monologues. Two matching tasks (5 questions each) on the same recording.
Sample CAE Listening item
A typical listening task you'd see in a CAE mock exam.
CAE · Part 1 · Multiple Choice
🎧 Audio transcript preview:
You hear two students discussing a lecture they've just attended. What did the man find most surprising?
A · How few people attended
✓B · How relevant the examples were to current events
C · How quickly the lecturer spoke
Common CAE Listening mistakes
- Part 4's two tasks (e.g. 'main idea' vs 'speaker's feeling') need separate focus — note the cue for each task in the preview.
- Part 3 distractors paraphrase the speaker's surface words while distorting the meaning. Listen for stance and argument, not vocabulary echoes.
- Numbers and names in Part 2 are tested for accurate spelling — don't write phonetic guesses.
Practise CAE Listening now
Free to start. Auto-marked with detailed per-question explanations.