The Cambridge exam you book decides the highest score you can be given

Cambridge states the design directly: results are also consistent across the different exams, making it easy to compare results and understand progress from one level to the next.

You get a score for each skill — Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, plus Use of English in certain exams — and the average of these results gives an overall result for the exam. A grade and a CEFR level come with it.

Read that averaging clause carefully, because it is a policy and not a formality. The overall score is a mean. A weak skill is compensated by a strong one, and the pages read here state no minimum any single skill has to clear.

This comparison is ours. It puts Cambridge at the opposite end of a spectrum this site has been mapping for weeks. The JLPT fails you outright for one section below 19 out of 60, whatever your total. Brazil's Celpe-Bras certifies you at the level of your weaker half. Cambridge averages, and lets your best skill carry your worst. Three bodies, three different answers to the same question: is a language ability a single quantity, or a set of separate ones that each have to stand up?

Each exam is targeted at one CEFR level and reports reliably at the level above and the level below. The boundaries are published rather than described. These are Cambridge's own tables:

A2 Key — 140–150 grade A, B1. 133–139 grade B, A2. 120–132 grade C, A2. 100–119, Level A1. Scores of 80–99 are reported with no certificate.

B1 Preliminary — 160–170 grade A, B2. 153–159 grade B, B1. 140–152 grade C, B1. 120–139, Level A2. Scores of 102–119, no certificate.

B2 First — 180–190 grade A, C1. 173–179 grade B, B2. 160–172 grade C, B2. 140–159, Level B1. Scores of 122–139, no certificate.

C1 Advanced — 200–210 grade A, C2. 193–199 grade B, C1. 180–192 grade C, C1. 160–179, B2. Scores of 142–159, no certificate.

C2 Proficiency — 220–230 grade A, C2. 213–219 grade B, C2. 200–212 grade C, C2. 180–199, Level C1. Scores of 162–179, no certificate.

C2 Proficiency is the one that only looks downward, and Cambridge says why in the same sentence pattern it uses everywhere else: it provides reliable assessment at the level below C2 (Level C1), with no clause about a level above. There is nothing above C2 on the CEFR to report.

Check the scale numbers against each other and they line up exactly. The score that means B2 is 160–179 whether it came from B2 First or from C1 Advanced. The score that means C1 is 180–199 whether it came from B2 First's grade A or from C1 Advanced's grades B and C. The scale is doing what Cambridge says it does.

Line the five certificate ranges up and a structure appears that Cambridge does not spell out anywhere we read, because it only becomes visible when you put the tables side by side.

A2 Key certificates run 100–150. B1 Preliminary 120–170. B2 First 140–190. C1 Advanced 160–210. C2 Proficiency 180–230. Five windows, each exactly 50 points wide, each starting exactly 20 points above the one before. The no-certificate bands below them do the same thing: 80–99, 102–119, 122–139, 142–159, 162–179.

This observation is ours, and it has a consequence that matters before you book. The window is fixed by the exam you enter. Sit B2 First and the highest score you can be given is 190 — however good you are. 190 is a C1 certificate, and it is also the ceiling. The C2 that C1 Advanced can award at 200 is not merely hard to reach from B2 First; it is not reportable from that paper at all.

So the familiar advice is right for an unfamiliar reason. Booking B2 First when you are a strong C1 does not mean you will be marked down. It means the top of your range is a level below the top of your ability, and the certificate will say C1 because C1 is as far as the paper goes.

And here is where it belongs in the wider picture. Norway's norskprøven, documented on this site, says outright that on the writing test du kan ikke få et høyere resultat enn det nivået du har meldt deg opp til — the band you book is a ceiling. Cambridge does exactly the same thing and never says it, because it never has to: the ceiling is arithmetic, sitting in the top row of a published table. Two bodies, the same mechanism, and only one of them writes it down as a warning.

The difference is how much headroom the cap leaves you. Norway caps you at the level you booked. Cambridge caps you one level above it. A cautious registration costs you a level in Norway and costs you nothing in Cambridge until you are two levels out.

Cambridge splits what most bodies treat as one process, and the split is the useful part. An Enquiry on Results is about your marks. An Appeal is about Cambridge's conduct. They are not two rungs of the same ladder.

Start with who is allowed to ask. Enquiries on Results must be submitted by the exam centre on behalf of the candidate. You contact your centre; the centre contacts Cambridge. This is ours: across the exam bodies documented on this site we have not read another that puts a third party between the candidate and the board. The rest are applied to directly; here the person who taught you or invigilated you is the one who has to file.

The enquiry has two stages and the second is gated on the first. Stage 1 is a full clerical re-check, outcome within 5 working days. Stage 2 is a full re-mark of your Writing test, outcome within 15 working days — and to request a Stage 2 Enquiry on Results, the candidate must have already completed a Stage 1 Enquiry and received an outcome letter. You cannot pay for a re-mark until an arithmetic check has come back.

The outcome carries the same risk Norway states: It is possible for the candidate's grade to go up, go down or remain the same. And the same refund mechanism as IELTS, with one extra clause — if the grade changes, Cambridge refunds all enquiry fees, requests the return of the original certificate, and issues a corrected one.

Speaking cannot be re-checked at all, and Cambridge states the reason outright: CEQs Speaking tests are rated independently by two examiners, and are not recorded. It is therefore not possible for Speaking Tests to be re-checked.

That sentence is why this section exists. On 1 September this site published an inference drawn from Norway's rules: that whether a paper can be appealed tracks not whether a human judged it, but whether the performance left a durable artefact a second reader can re-read. A text can go to new markers. A conversation heard once in a room cannot be re-heard. That was our reading of a pattern. Cambridge, independently and in its own words, gives exactly that mechanism as its reason — no recording, therefore no re-check. An inference confirmed by a body that was not asked.

The appeal is a different object. The appeals procedure is not concerned with making judgements about candidates' work in the examination; an appeal will not involve re-marking or re-assessment of a candidate's work. It asks whether Cambridge used procedures which were consistent with the regulatory authorities' code of practice and applied its procedures properly and fairly. Your script is not the subject. Their process is.

And the remedy is not confined to you. Where the outcome of an appeal brings into question the accuracy of grades awarded in an assessment, Cambridge English will take all reasonable steps to identify any other candidate who may have been affected and wherever possible correct or mitigate the error. This is ours: one candidate's successful appeal can move the grades of candidates who never appealed and will never know they were part of it. It is the only remedy we have read on these bodies' own pages that travels beyond the person who asked for it.

Your Cambridge English certificate does not expire. Recognising organisations such as universities, colleges and employers can choose how long to accept results for, so make sure you always check their requirements.

That is the IELTS posture almost word for word, and the two are not unrelated: both are published under Cambridge University Press & Assessment, which is an IELTS partner. Where IELTS names a default — a recommended maximum of two years, with a written exception for candidates who can show they kept their English up — Cambridge names none at all and hands the whole question over.

A note that corrects something on this site. Our IELTS guide records that the ielts.org pages we read do not map bands to CEFR levels, and prints no conversion table for that reason. That is still true of ielts.org. It is not true of the wider organisation: Cambridge publishes a score converter that moves between CEFR levels, IELTS band scores and the Cambridge English Scale, and states its own limit — IELTS band scores below 4.0 (142 - 146) are not mapped to the Cambridge English Scale. So the mapping exists first-party from an IELTS partner. It was absent from the pages we had read, which is a fact about where we looked rather than about the world.

Results timing is published per format and the gap is large. Digital exam results: 5–10 working days. Paper-based: normally 4–6 weeks. Paper certificates then follow — within 3–4 weeks to the centre for digital exams, 7–10 weeks after the exam date for paper-based ones. End to end, the paper route can take three months to put a certificate in your hand.

No fee is published. Not for the exam, and not for the enquiry — the enquiry table answers How much does it cost? with Please contact your exam centre for the fee, and answers the deadline question the same way. Cambridge defines the exam, the scale and the boundaries, and leaves both the price and the calendar to the centre.

That is the posture already recorded here for JLPT, HSK, telc, CAPLE, DELF / DALF, Norskprøven, Norskprøven C1, IELTS and Swedex. Re-read on 11 September 2026, Cambridge's own registration FAQ answers How much does an exam cost? with The cost of entering for a Cambridge English exam depends on which exam you take and where you take it. Please contact your chosen exam centre — a disclaimer in writing, like telc's, rather than silence. The comparison table on this site therefore records it as an explicit disclaimer rather than quoting a number. Any single Cambridge exam price you find online is one centre's fee, on some past date, presented as if it were global.

One practical consequence of the devolution that is easy to miss: the submission deadline for an enquiry is also set locally. If you think your result is wrong, the clock you are racing is your centre's, and nobody publishes it. Ask on the day the result arrives, not the week after.