CET-6 Practice Tests

Part I Writing

Section A — Conversation One (Questions 1-4)

In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 1 (heard only): (A) She took charge of hives her employer had installed. (B) She took a course after losing her job at a hotel. (C) She was hired by a hotel to improve its green image. (D) She inherited several hives from a farmer she knew.
2. Question 2 (heard only): (A) They can stay active through the winter months. (B) They have a steadier supply of food over a longer season. (C) They face less competition from wild bee species. (D) They are protected from the pesticides used on farms.
3. Question 3 (heard only): (A) She believes it is based on outdated research. (B) She has moved many of her hives to the countryside. (C) She thinks it applies only to wild bee species. (D) She has limited her own business because of it.
4. Question 4 (heard only): (A) Grow plants that flower when food is hard to find. (B) Take a weekend course in keeping bees. (C) Keep a small hive on a balcony or rooftop. (D) Buy honey produced by local beekeepers.

Section A — Conversation Two (Questions 5-8)

In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 5 (heard only): (A) The results of their department's client survey. (B) The best ways of training newly hired graduates. (C) Their company's new requirements for office attendance. (D) How to make long train journeys more productive.
2. Question 6 (heard only): (A) It changes a way of working that has proved successful. (B) It gives the newly hired graduates too little support. (C) It forces him to stand on crowded trains for hours. (D) It lets managers monitor employees through their badges.
3. Question 7 (heard only): (A) They prefer sending emails to talking face to face. (B) They have too little contact with experienced colleagues. (C) They were hired to replace retiring senior staff. (D) They are not yet able to handle difficult calls.
4. Question 8 (heard only): (A) Ask head office to stop checking badge records. (B) Back up his proposal with his team's results. (C) Invite the graduates to join his team on Mondays. (D) Accept the policy because it has been decided.

Section B — Passage One (Questions 9-11)

In this section, you will hear two passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 9 (heard only): (A) They felt their legs becoming heavy and stopped early. (B) They rode about three percent faster than usual. (C) They realized the capsules contained only flour. (D) They performed about as well as they normally did.
2. Question 10 (heard only): (A) It stops producing pain once caffeine reaches the muscles. (B) It becomes less active as the muscles grow tired. (C) It reacts more strongly to real pills than to fake ones. (D) It keeps some physical capacity in reserve as a precaution.
3. Question 11 (heard only): (A) They work only in races decided by a second or less. (B) They may help even when athletes know the truth. (C) They usually destroy trust between coaches and athletes. (D) They are less effective than pre-race rituals.

Section B — Passage Two (Questions 12-15)

In this section, you will hear two passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 12 (heard only): (A) Bidders guessed more accurately when the jar was made of glass. (B) Most bidders guessed far less than the jar really contained. (C) The winning bids tended to be higher than the coins were worth. (D) The average bid was usually well above eight dollars.
2. Question 13 (heard only): (A) They ask experts to estimate what the object is worth. (B) They become too nervous to raise their paddles. (C) They leave the auction before the clock stops ticking. (D) They care more about defeating rivals than about the item.
3. Question 14 (heard only): (A) They have forgotten the limit they set for themselves. (B) They have already paid part of the price in advance. (C) They do not want the effort they have made to be wasted. (D) They fear other bidders will laugh at them if they quit.
4. Question 15 (heard only): (A) Bid only on objects whose value is easy to judge. (B) Fix a maximum price before the bidding begins. (C) Wait until the final seconds before placing a bid. (D) Stay calm by avoiding auctions with an audience.

Section C — Recording One (Questions 16-18)

In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 16 (heard only): (A) They followed the position of the sun in the sky. (B) They copied the time used in the nearest large city. (C) They relied on clocks set by travelers on horseback. (D) They used the time shown at the local station.
2. Question 17 (heard only): (A) They preferred to follow the time used in London. (B) They found the new railway timetables too hard to read. (C) They worried that trains would collide on single tracks. (D) They felt companies should not replace the time set by nature.
3. Question 18 (heard only): (A) Faster technology has repeatedly required more exact timekeeping. (B) Railway companies deserve most of the credit for modern clocks. (C) Governments were slow to see the value of standard time. (D) Atomic clocks have made time zones largely unnecessary.

Section C — Recording Two (Questions 19-21)

In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 19 (heard only): (A) They supply plants with water and minerals in return for sugar. (B) They break down dead leaves faster than bacteria do. (C) They compete with plant roots for water and phosphorus. (D) They produce sugar from sunlight near the surface.
2. Question 20 (heard only): (A) The harvests were smaller than before. (B) The neighbors adopted the same methods. (C) The farmer used much less fertilizer. (D) The fields held twice as much water.
3. Question 21 (heard only): (A) They contain species that have never been properly named. (B) They are too expensive for most small farmers. (C) Added microbes often fail to survive among the local ones. (D) They encourage farmers to return to heavy plowing.

Section C — Recording Three (Questions 22-25)

In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices.

1. Question 22 (heard only): (A) Most requests were refused at the start of a session. (B) Requests were most likely to be granted right after a break. (C) Approval rates stayed at about sixty percent all day. (D) Judges approved more requests as each session went on.
2. Question 23 (heard only): (A) Spend longer thinking about each separate case. (B) Ask colleagues to make difficult choices for them. (C) Take more risks in order to finish quickly. (D) Choose the option that leaves things unchanged.
3. Question 24 (heard only): (A) The breaks were too short to restore mental energy. (B) The judges knew that researchers were observing them. (C) Weaker cases may have been heard later in each session. (D) Too few rulings were examined to reach a conclusion.
4. Question 25 (heard only): (A) It explains the judges' behavior better than any other theory. (B) It matters in courtrooms but has little relevance to daily life. (C) It is likely weaker than claimed, but the advice is still worth following. (D) It has been completely disproved by later laboratory experiments.

Part III Section A — Banked cloze (Questions 26-35)

In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Part III Section B — Long reading (Questions 36-45)

In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter.

1. A new kind of sleeping space has appealed to solo travelers who disliked spending the night alongside people they did not know.
2. Compared with ordinary carriages, sleeping cars hold fewer people and are put to use far less often.
3. Some critics believe public money aimed at reducing emissions would achieve more if spent on fast daytime rail links.
4. After being refused loans, the founders of a new rail company financed it with contributions from ordinary people.
5. Because tracks are often closed for repairs at night, overnight trains may be forced onto much longer routes.
6. The arrival of very cheap flights was one of the reasons many overnight rail services were withdrawn.
7. Night trains can reach towns and cities that low-cost airlines do not bother to serve.
8. Since no new sleeping cars could be obtained quickly, one operator restored decades-old ones instead.
9. Rail supporters complain that trains bear costs from which international air travel is exempt.
10. Many young people surveyed said they would switch from planes to trains for long journeys if fares were comparable.

Part III Section C — Passage One (Questions 46-50)

There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices. You should decide on the best choice.

1. What do the promoters of hiring software claim? (A) It measures attention more accurately than human interviews. (B) It predicts how long new employees will stay with a firm. (C) It helps managers find candidates who share their interests. (D) It applies one consistent standard to every applicant.
2. What does the author say about systems trained on data about past employees? (A) They become fair once sex and age have been removed. (B) They are unable to learn which workers were promoted. (C) They may carry on the preferences of earlier managers. (D) They discriminate deliberately against older applicants.
3. What does the word "proxies" (Para 3) most probably refer to? (A) Pieces of information that indirectly reveal excluded traits. (B) Records showing which employees have been promoted. (C) Categories that are legally protected from discrimination. (D) Designers who check the results of a hiring program.
4. Why can algorithmic bias be harder to detect than human bias? (A) It affects fewer applicants than a prejudiced manager does. (B) It is used mainly by firms that receive few applications. (C) Its decisions are made on a vast scale and are hard to explain. (D) Its designers are unwilling to reveal how their programs work.
5. What does the author think is the key to fair algorithmic hiring? (A) Programs designed to ignore postal codes and club memberships. (B) Users' readiness to scrutinize outcomes and question past patterns. (C) A return to recruitment decisions made entirely by people. (D) Laws requiring every hiring program to publish its code.

Part III Section C — Passage Two (Questions 51-55)

There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices. You should decide on the best choice.

1. What do the predictions mentioned in the first paragraph have in common? (A) They were made by economists with little technical knowledge. (B) They accurately foresaw the rise of automation in banking. (C) They persuaded governments to shorten the working week. (D) They overstated how much human work would disappear.
2. What does the example of bank tellers illustrate? (A) Technology tends to reshape jobs rather than eliminate them. (B) Cash machines were slower to spread than experts expected. (C) Automation reduces the number of places where people work. (D) Banks prefer to hire staff who can give financial advice.
3. Why, according to the author, do forecasters overlook new work? (A) They rely on outdated lists of existing occupations. (B) Future occupations are very hard to imagine in advance. (C) They pay too much attention to young workers' skills. (D) New jobs are usually created in other countries.
4. What does the author say about the spread of new technology? (A) It depends mainly on how quickly laboratories can lower costs. (B) It happens faster in firms that have been recently reorganized. (C) It is usually blocked by workers who fear for their jobs. (D) It is slowed by the organizational, training and legal changes it requires.
5. What does the author believe policymakers should focus on? (A) Keeping factory jobs in the towns that depend on them. (B) Preventing the dramatic end of work predicted in headlines. (C) Helping those who lose out as the economy changes. (D) Producing more accurate forecasts about future jobs.

Part IV Translation (English-only adaptation: guided paragraph writing)

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes. Read the notes below and write ONE well-organized English paragraph of 160-200 words that includes all the information in the notes. Link the ideas logically; do not simply list them.

Task 1 — Self-introduction and question

Introduce yourself in about 20 seconds. Then answer the examiner's question in about 30 seconds.

1. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the CET Spoken English Test, Band 6. First, each of you will introduce yourself. Candidate A, please introduce yourself. You have 20 seconds. Example: Good afternoon. I'm Zhao Lin, a third-year student of environmental engineering from Kunming, a city people call the Spring City. At the moment I'm working on a project about water quality in local lakes, and outside class I play the guitar in a small campus band.
2. Thank you. Candidate A, what hobby do you enjoy most, and what have you gained from it? You have 30 seconds. Example: My favorite hobby is definitely playing the guitar. I taught myself from online videos in high school, and now I perform with three friends at campus events. Apart from the fun, it's taught me patience, because progress comes slowly, and teamwork, since a band only sounds good when everyone listens to each other. It's also my best way to relax after a long day in the lab.

Task 2 — Individual presentation

Topic card: Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? You may talk about: what each kind of person is good at; which one employers and society need more; which you would rather be, and why. You have 1 minute to prepare. Then each candidate speaks for 1.5 minutes.

1. Now let's move on to Task 2. Please look at your topic card: Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? You have one minute to prepare. Candidate A, you will speak first. You have one and a half minutes. Example: In my view, it's better to begin as a specialist. A specialist is someone who knows one field in real depth, such as a heart surgeon or a chip designer, and that depth is what allows people to solve difficult problems that others can't even define. Employers still pay a premium for it: when a bridge has a crack, nobody wants a person who knows a little about everything. Deep expertise also gives you confidence and a clear professional identity, which matters a lot when you're young and competing for your first job. That said, I don't think specialists should stay inside a narrow box. The best experts I've met can explain their work to outsiders and borrow ideas from other fields. So my plan is to build real depth in environmental engineering first, and then gradually widen my knowledge, especially in data analysis and policy, so that my expertise stays useful as the field changes.
2. Thank you. Now, Candidate B, please give your presentation on the same topic. You have one and a half minutes. Example: I'd argue that being a generalist is more valuable today. A generalist has a broad range of skills and can connect ideas from different areas. Many of the biggest problems we face, like climate change or aging populations, don't belong to a single discipline; solving them needs people who can talk to engineers, economists and ordinary citizens and see how the pieces fit together. Technology is also changing so fast that a very narrow skill can become outdated, or even automated, within a few years. Generalists tend to adapt more easily because they're used to learning new things. Of course, a generalist still needs some solid expertise; otherwise, you're just someone who knows a few buzzwords. But if I had to choose, I'd rather be flexible than narrowly perfect. At university, I'm taking courses in both business and computer science, and I think that combination will give me more choices in the future.

Task 2 (continued) — Pair discussion

Discussion card: Should universities require every student to complete an internship before graduating? Discuss the question with your partner: the benefits for students, the difficulties for universities and employers, and what a good internship requirement might look like. Try to reach an agreement. You have 3 minutes.

1. Your partner says: I think every university should make internships compulsory. Graduates without work experience find it really hard to get a job. Example: I agree that experience helps a lot. An internship shows you what a job is actually like, and it gives you something concrete to talk about in interviews. But I'm not sure making it compulsory for everyone is realistic. In some majors, like philosophy or pure mathematics, there aren't many obvious placements. Wouldn't we end up with thousands of students doing meaningless tasks just to get a certificate?
2. Your partner says: That's a fair point. But if universities don't require it, many students will just never bother. Example: True, some people need a push. Maybe the answer is to require some kind of practical experience, but allow different forms. For example, a student could do a traditional internship, work on a research project with a local company, or volunteer for an organization for a set number of hours. That way, every student gets real-world experience, but it fits their field and doesn't depend entirely on the number of companies willing to take interns.
3. Your partner says: I like that. But what about the quality? A lot of interns just make coffee and photocopies. Example: Exactly, that's the biggest risk. I think the university should sign agreements with employers that describe what the intern will actually learn, and each student should have a supervisor at the workplace and a tutor on campus. At the end, students could write a short report reflecting on what they did. If a company only gives interns boring errands, the university simply stops sending students there.
4. Your partner says: OK. So can we agree on a conclusion? Example: Sure. So we both think practical experience before graduation is very valuable, but a rigid internship requirement for everyone could backfire. Our suggestion is a flexible requirement: students choose between an internship, a project with a company or community service, and the university makes sure each placement is supervised and genuinely educational. I think that would benefit students without placing an impossible burden on universities or employers.

Task 3 — Further question

Answer the examiner's question. You have 45 seconds.

1. Thank you. Now, Candidate A, how do you think artificial intelligence will change the field you plan to work in? You have 45 seconds. Example: I plan to work in environmental engineering, and I think AI will change it quite a lot. Right now, engineers spend hours collecting and cleaning data from sensors in rivers and factories. AI can do much of that work automatically and spot pollution problems far earlier than people can. But I don't think it will replace engineers. Someone still has to judge which solution is affordable, fair to local communities and safe in the long run. So I expect my job to shift from routine calculation toward judgment and communication, and I'm trying to prepare for that now.