C1 Advanced Use of English - My Lingua Academy

Preparing for C1 Advanced Use of English becomes much easier when you know exactly what to practise.

Instead of trying to revise all your grammar and vocabulary at once, work through the four Use of English task types separately:

Part 1 – Multiple-Choice Cloze: vocabulary, collocations, phrasal verbs and fixed expressions
Part 2 – Open Cloze: grammar, prepositions and small grammatical words
Part 3 – Word Formation: prefixes, suffixes and word families
Part 4 – Key Word Transformations: advanced grammar, paraphrasing and fixed structures

Use this page as your C1 Advanced Use of English study map. Choose the part you want to improve, study the relevant lessons and then practise with exam-style questions.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Multiple-Choice Cloze

In Part 1, you choose one answer from four options to complete each gap. To do well, you need to develop a strong awareness of collocations, phrasal verbs, fixed expressions, dependent prepositions, verb patterns, words with similar meanings, and differences between formal and informal vocabulary.

It is not enough to know the meaning of individual words; you also need to know which words naturally go together. For example, reach, arrive, achieve and get can all be connected in some way with obtaining a result, but English naturally uses combinations such as reach a conclusion, reach an agreement, achieve a goal and arrive at a decision. Part 1 therefore rewards learners who can recognise natural combinations of words and choose the expression that fits both the meaning and the context.

Useful lessons:

Part 2: Open Cloze

In Part 2, there are no answer choices, so you must write one word in each gap. The missing word is often something small, such as a preposition, article, auxiliary verb, modal verb, pronoun, relative word, conjunction or quantifier. It may also be part of a comparison or a fixed expression. The key skill is to look carefully at the grammar and structure around the gap rather than simply choosing a word that sounds right.

For example, in the sentence She succeeded ___ persuading them to reconsider, you should recognise the pattern succeed + in + -ing, so the correct answer is in. In other words, do not ask only, “What word sounds right?” Ask yourself, “What structure is this gap part of?”

Start with this lesson:

C1 Advanced Open Cloze: 10 Types of Words to Look For

This lesson takes you through the main types of words that appear in Open Cloze and shows you how to diagnose each gap before answering.

Grammar to practise for Open Cloze

Part 3: Word Formation

In Part 3, you are given a base word and must change it so that it fits correctly into the sentence. This part tests your knowledge of word families and your ability to recognise whether the gap requires a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.

For example, from the base word compete, you can form competition, competitor, competitive and competitively. Sometimes you may also need to make the word negative, change its spelling or use a plural form.

Before changing the base word, look carefully at the sentence and ask yourself, “What type of word is missing here?” Then consider whether the meaning should be positive or negative.

For example:

The new system has proved extremely ________. (RELY)

After extremely, you need an adjective. The meaning is positive, so the answer is reliable.

Learning complete word families is much more useful than memorising individual words. Pay particular attention to common prefixes, suffixes, negative forms and spelling changes.

Useful lessons: