C2 Proficiency Multiple Choice Cloze Practice

C2 Proficiency (CPE) · Reading & Use of English Part 1 · 92 free exercises

A text with eight gaps, each offering four similar words — only one fits. Multiple choice cloze tests precise vocabulary: collocations (words that naturally go together), fixed phrases, phrasal verbs and shades of meaning between near-synonyms.

Multiple Choice Cloze: Four words fit the gap; only one fits the phrase.

8 — gaps
4 options — A B C D
1 mark — per gap
~8 min — of your paper

Collocation and fixed expressions — which words go together in English. The four options are usually close in meaning, so the answer is not the word you understand but the word English pairs with its neighbours.

What real learners get wrong: C2 learners average 74%. At this level the options are even closer in meaning and the fixed phrases more sophisticated — wide reading is the real preparation.

The method

Read the whole sentence first, ignoring the options — try to feel what belongs in the gap.
Read the words on both sides: the answer is usually chosen by a neighbour (a verb before, a preposition after).
Ask whether this is a fixed phrase — a phrasal verb, idiom or set expression. If so, only one option completes it.
Test each option inside the phrase, not just by meaning. All four may mean something similar.
Eliminate what you can prove wrong, then choose — narrowing to two doubles your odds.

The traps

The plausible synonym: A distractor that means almost the same but does not collocate. You "clock up" laps, you do not "sum" them.
Choosing by meaning, not pairing: Combat, battle, struggle and contest all mean fighting — only one pairs with "doing".
Idioms with a fixed word: "Out of harm’s way" allows no substitution — not danger’s, risk’s or threat’s.
Ignoring the preposition: The little word after the gap often decides — "___ of working hours" wants "assurance".
Reading only the gap sentence: If two options both fit the sentence, the wider context breaks the tie.

C2 Proficiency Multiple Choice Cloze Practice

Multiple Choice Cloze: Four words fit the gap; only one fits the phrase.

The method

The traps

All Multiple Choice Cloze exercises

Cambridge English Proficiency 1, Cambridge University Press

Cambridge English Proficiency 2, Cambridge University Press

Close-up C2 Workbook, National Geographic Learning

Close-up C2, National Geographic Learning

Expert Proficiency Resource Book, Pearson Education

Expert Proficiency, Pearson Education

Objective Proficiency 2nd Edition Workbook, Cambridge University Press

Objective Proficiency 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press

Proficiency Testbuilder, 4th Edition, Mark Harrison, Macmillan

Ready for C2 Proficiency Student's Book, Macmillan

Ready for C2 Proficiency Workbook, Macmillan

Other levels