Recommended Order of Doing Question Types in the English CET-4/6 Exam
Reading Comprehension: First or Last?
Reading comprehension questions are usually the most time-consuming part of the exam. Some students prefer to do them first to get them out of the way, while others leave them till the end so that they have more time to concentrate. We recommend doing them first, as this helps you understand the given passages better, especially as you have a fresh mind and a better attention span before you have attempted other questions. This also gives you an overall understanding of the format of the passages, which might help you with the other sections of the exam.
Cloze Tests and Short Passages:
The next part of the exam is composed of fill-in-the-blank sentences usually referred to as “Cloze Tests” with short passages. We recommend attempting the questions in the following order:
- Grammatical structure and vocabulary questions
- Incomplete sentence questions
- Cloze tests
- Short passage questions
This order focuses on the tasks that are relatively easier and helps to build momentum. If Grammar and Vocabulary are your strong suits, do these first. Even if the language used in these questions is unfamiliar, the questions will generally have less cluttered and more straightforward sentences compared to passages. Once you’re through with these questions, move on to the questions that require completing sentences. Completing the sentences becomes progressively harder, so we suggest doing this question type first.
Translation:
Finally, the last section is the translation. We recommend completing the other question types before you get to this section. While translation is an isolated skill and requires specific knowledge, completing the rest of the exam before you attempt translation can give you data about your performance on the multiple-choice questions, which might be useful in judging the level of your proficiency.
In conclusion, it’s recommended to attempt the Reading Comprehension questions first, followed by Cloze Tests with short passages, and complete the entire exam before moving to the Translation section. By doing so, test takers not only have a better idea of the exam format but also can develop their momentum to get a better result.
