One long text, six paragraphs removed, seven to choose from. The examiners are testing cohesion across a denser, more abstract argument than at B2 level.
Part 7 removes six sentences from a longer, denser text and gives you seven to put back — one fits nowhere. At C1, the argument often moves through concession, contrast, and qualification, so the cohesion clues are frequently logical rather than a simple shared noun or pronoun.
"Caffeine can improve alertness and short-term focus for many people. ___ The compound works by blocking a chemical in the brain that normally signals tiredness, rather than creating new energy from nothing."
Four gaps, five sentences to choose from (one is extra). Pick the sentence that fits each gap on both sides.
Many students study with a phone nearby, a series playing in the background, or several tabs open, convinced that their brain can handle more than one demanding task at once. (1) What actually happens, cognitive researchers argue, is not true simultaneous processing but extremely fast switching between tasks, and each switch carries a small but real cost in time and accuracy.
(2) Even a brief glance at a notification, lasting only a few seconds, has been shown to disrupt concentration for several minutes afterward, since attention does not snap back to full focus the instant the phone is put back down.
Some students argue that background music or television helps them concentrate by blocking out silence. (3) The nature of the material matters more than the mere presence of noise: instrumental, unfamiliar music causes far less disruption than anything containing lyrics or spoken dialogue a person can understand. (4) Simply closing unnecessary tabs and turning a phone screen-down, rather than relying on willpower alone to ignore it, removes most of the temptation before it even has a chance to interrupt a study session.
A new full-length text, official Part 7 format: 6 gaps, 7 sentences. Aim to finish before the timer runs out.
15:00Most students, when preparing for an exam, default to rereading notes or highlighting a textbook repeatedly, mistaking the growing sense of familiarity for genuine mastery. (1) Cognitive scientists have spent decades studying which study techniques actually produce durable, retrievable memory, and rereading consistently ranks among the least effective, despite its enduring popularity.
The single most consistently effective technique identified in this research is retrieval practice: forcing yourself to recall information from memory without looking at the source, rather than simply re-exposing yourself to it. (2) Every time information is successfully retrieved under some degree of difficulty, that act of retrieval strengthens the memory far more than passively reviewing the same material again would.
Spacing these retrieval attempts out over days or weeks, rather than compressing them into a single cramming session, produces dramatically better long-term retention. (3) A certain amount of forgetting between sessions is not a failure of the method; it is precisely what makes the next retrieval attempt effortful enough to strengthen the memory meaningfully.
A related but distinct technique, known as interleaving, involves mixing several different but related topics or problem types within a single study session, rather than mastering one completely before moving to the next. (4) Blocked practice, by contrast, can create an illusion of fluency that quickly evaporates once problems appear in an unpredictable, mixed order, such as on an actual exam.
None of this feels particularly pleasant while it's happening, and that is exactly the point. (5) Researchers have taken to calling this kind of productive struggle a "desirable difficulty" — a signal that real learning is underway, not evidence that a technique has failed.
Translating all of this into an actual study routine is simpler than it might sound. (6) Neither change requires more study time overall; both simply redirect the same number of hours toward the techniques the evidence actually supports.
This is a practice estimate for one exam part only. Your official Cambridge result is calculated across the whole exam on the Cambridge English Scale.