Cambridge English

All three exams have four papers. Reading and Use of English (Reading alone at B1), Writing and Listening are sat on the exam date; Speaking is a separate face-to-face test, usually with one other candidate and always with two examiners. The timings below are from the official exam-format pages, read on 21 October 2026.

One examiner, the interlocutor, runs the test from a scripted frame and talks to you; the other, the assessor, says nothing and marks. All three format pages add that the interlocutor "could be online, examining remotely". The written papers take about 3 hours 15 minutes at B2 First (1 hour 15, 1 hour 20, about 40 minutes) and about 3 hours 40 at C1 Advanced (1 hour 30, 1 hour 30, about 40 minutes); B1 Preliminary is 45, 45 and 30 minutes, with each of the four papers worth 25 per cent. The Speaking test can be on a different day from the written papers: the 2026 dates PDF tells candidates to "contact exam centres to check their exam calendar, including the Speaking test date". The B2 First, C1 Advanced and B1 Preliminary pages walk through each part with the interlocutor's wording, sample tasks written by TalkDrill and model turns.

Per the B2 First handbook, you are "assessed on your own individual performance and not in relation to each other". The assessor marks four analytical criteria on bands 0 to 5: Grammar and Vocabulary, Discourse Management, Pronunciation and Interactive Communication; the C1 Advanced handbook splits the first into Grammatical Resource and Lexical Resource. The interlocutor gives one Global Achievement mark on the same 0 to 5 band. The band 5 Pronunciation descriptor at B2 is short: "Is intelligible. Intonation is appropriate. Sentence and word stress is accurately placed. Individual sounds are articulated clearly." Nothing about accent. The Interactive Communication band 5 asks you to initiate and respond, link your contributions to your partner's, and negotiate towards an outcome, which is why a one-minute monologue in Part 3 costs marks even when the English is perfect.

The marks from all four papers become one Cambridge English Scale score. The grade lines that matter, from the official results pages and handbooks:

So "160 in FCE" is a pass at Grade C, and a 180 on B2 First earns a certificate that states C1. Cambridge's guide to converting practice test scores adds that the overall score is the average of five scores (one for each of the four skills and one for Use of English) and that there is "no requirement to achieve a minimum score in each paper". The B2 First results page also says candidates scoring 122 to 139 receive a Statement of Results but no certificate. The criteria and scale page prints every band descriptor and what each sounds like; the IELTS Speaking hub is the place to go if you are choosing between the two.

Cambridge lists "over 2,800 centres in 130 countries" on its find-a-centre page. Cambridge publishes no candidate numbers by country on the pages we read, so this is our reading of who searches: school and university students and job seekers in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Latin America, Turkey, Vietnam, Greece and Poland, many of them asked for a B2 or C1 certificate by a university, a school programme or an employer. The certificate is a level for life: the results page says it "does not expire", although each organisation decides how recent a result it accepts. The first-language pages for Spanish, Italian and Portuguese speakers and for Turkish and Vietnamese speakers follow that mix.

Fees are set by each centre. cambridgeenglish.org publishes no price and we will not print one as if it did. The only centre figure we could read this week is from IH Bristol's exam-dates page (21 October 2026): a GBP 45 charge for late entry, with its paper B2 First on 12 December 2026 and paper C1 Advanced on 5 December 2026. The British Council UK fee page, which listed GBP 175 for B1 Preliminary in our 19 October research, would not load on 21 October, so treat that figure as unverified this week. British Council stopped delivering Cambridge exams in Spain (23 April 2023) and Italy (April 2023), per its own country pages, so searches for a "British Council FCE fee" in those countries lead nowhere; use the centre finder. The fees and registration page keeps example centre prices by country, each with the centre and the date it was read, and the dates page lists every 2026 and 2027 paper sitting.

Paper-based B1 Preliminary, B2 First and C1 Advanced sit on fixed worldwide dates published in the official examination-dates PDFs. The remaining 2026 paper dates (2026 PDF, version 4, June 2026) are: B2 First Saturday 7 November, Tuesday 24 November, Saturday 12 December; C1 Advanced Saturday 14 November, Wednesday 25 November, Saturday 28 November, Saturday 5 December, Saturday 12 December; B1 Preliminary Saturday 21 November, Thursday 3 December. The 2027 PDF (version 1) opens with C1 Advanced on Saturday 23 January and Wednesday 17 February, and B2 First on Saturday 27 February. The dates block on this page is rendered from the same rows and is re-checked weekly. The digital versions of all three exams are "available throughout the year" through centres, per both PDFs, and the dates page adds that "Speaking test dates are subject to local provision", so the Speaking test may not be on the same day as the written papers.

Results, per the B2 First results page: digital exams 5 to 10 working days after the session, paper-based "normally available 4 to 6 weeks" after; both through the free Online Results Service. Paper certificates are usually sent to the centre within 3 to 4 weeks for digital exams and 7 to 10 weeks after the exam date for paper ones. Your centre sets the entry deadline: IH Bristol, for instance, starts its late-entry period (GBP 45 extra) for the 12 December paper B2 First on 11 November 2026, takes its last bookings on 23 November and holds that session's Speaking test on 11 December. B2 First for Schools has its own, longer list: 27 paper dates in the 2027 PDF, against 13 for B2 First. If a university deadline is fixed, work backwards from the certificate date, not the exam date, and consider the digital version. The results and certificates page covers the Online Results Service login, the Statement of Results and what "does not expire" means in practice.

Eight weeks, five study days a week, 15 to 40 minutes a day, with full-length papers in week 7. Every day has a speaking task, because Speaking is a fifth of the B2 First result and the one paper you cannot practise silently. The written papers get their own days too: Cambridge's guide to converting practice test scores says the overall result is the average of five scores and there is "no requirement to achieve a minimum score in each paper", so a strong paper can carry a weak one. Use the free official sample tests from the B2 First preparation page, because the guide's benchmarks only apply to official practice tests. The roadmap page explains each week and gives a 4-week version.

Each task has two halves. The prompt is what the interlocutor says and shows: for Part 2 the photographs are described in words because we have no images; for Part 3 the written prompts and the central question are set out as they appear in the booklet; for Parts 1 and 4 the questions are given in order. The counterpart is the second candidate’s likely contribution or the interlocutor’s follow-up, so a study partner or the TalkDrill AI partner can take that side. Run the task to the official timer first, then read the model, written by TalkDrill at the target grade (B1 Grade B, B2 First Grade B, C1 Advanced 190 and above), and the examiner note, which names the criterion the task really tests. The model is one good performance, not a script; examiners mark what you say to the person next to you.