Michigan ECPE results explained: the C2 certificate on an average of 650, the Honors almost nobody gets, and the 2025 figures

Listening, 50 minutes: 20 short conversations, 18 questions on short talks and 12 on discussions with several speakers. Only the last part is played twice.

Reading, 55 minutes: 16 grammar, 16 cloze, 20 vocabulary and 18 comprehension questions.

Writing, 45 minutes, one task. You choose an article or proposal, or an essay, and you get three sources, such as a chart, a graph or a quotation. You are expected to use at least one of them in your answer.

Speaking, 30 minutes: two or three candidates together, two examiners, and a task in five stages.

Listening and reading are marked by computer, with no points taken off for wrong answers. Writing is marked by at least two certified raters, and speaking is run and marked by two certified examiners.

Each section gets a scaled score from 0 to 1000, calculated with Item Response Theory so that the standard stays the same from year to year. Each section score also falls into one of five bands: Honors 840–1000, Pass 750–835, Low Pass 650–745, Borderline Fail 610–645 and Fail 0–605.

You get the Certificate of Proficiency with an average score of 650 or more across the four sections. You get it with Honors only if you score 840 or more in every one of the four.

Our reading: because the certificate goes on the average, a candidate can be in the Fail band in one section and still be certified at C2 if the other three carry the average to 650. Honors works the opposite way: a single section under 840 rules it out, however high the others are. Michigan's B2 exam, the ECCE, uses the same structure.

Michigan's ECPE 2025 Test Report gives the outcome for the year: 77.63% passed, made up of 77.59% Pass and 0.03% Honors, and 22.37% failed. That is about three in ten thousand candidates reaching Honors.

By section, the report says candidates did best in speaking and found listening and reading the hardest. Below 650 (Borderline Fail or Fail) were 33.25% in listening and 30.57% in reading, against 25.12% in writing and 10.04% in speaking.

Writing is where Honors is lost. Only 0.16% of candidates were in the writing Honors band, against 14.44% in reading and 9.68% in listening. Most writers landed in Low Pass (63.95%). Almost nobody failed writing outright (0.85%), but almost nobody reached the top either.

What the figures cannot tell you is which section costs a candidate the certificate. The certificate goes on the four-section average, so a weak listening score can be carried by the other three, and the per-section bands do not show which section pulled any one candidate's average under 650. Listening and reading were the hardest sections overall; the report does not single out one section as the one that decides the certificate.

How an exam coordinator reads the same figures. John Bardis, Academic Coordinator at the Center for Examinations and Certifications of the Hellenic American Union in Athens: "The 2025 figures show that higher proportions of test takers achieved a passing score band in the productive skills sections, Writing (74.88%) and Speaking (89.96%), than in the receptive skills sections, Listening (66.75%) and Reading (69.43%). This indicates stronger overall performance in the productive sections in this administration. However, the published data do not show which individual section most often determined whether a candidate received the certificate, since the final result is based on the average score across all four sections."

Our reading: Honors is different, because it needs 840 in every section. No more than 0.16% of candidates could have got Honors once writing was counted, and 0.03% did.

The 2025 candidates came from 9 first-language backgrounds, mostly Greek, Portuguese or Spanish. 90.18% were under 20, and 76.94% were aged 14 to 16. Michigan's reading is that candidates take the ECPE while still at school, before university.

The report gives the standard error of measurement, averaged across the 2025 sittings: 47.75 points in listening and 42.24 in reading, on the 1000-point scale. Reliability was 0.81 for listening and 0.87 for reading, above the 0.80 Michigan treats as acceptable for a high-stakes exam.

Our reading: a listening score of 620 or 680 is within one standard error of the 650 line. If your section scores sit that close, a retake on a different day could land either side of it.

Michigan gives two different result times. Its ECPE page says results are typically available 45 days after the test. Its results page says 6–8 weeks. Plan for the later one if you have a deadline.

Everyone gets an Examination Report with the overall result and each section's band and score. If you pass, you also get the Certificate of Proficiency in English, sometimes sent through your test centre.

The certificate does not expire. Michigan says it is valid for the holder's lifetime, but also suggests that anyone reading it check the test date, since language ability changes over time. Each university or employer sets its own rule.

For other C2 options: Cambridge C2 Proficiency reports on the Cambridge English Scale, and LanguageCert has a C2 Academic test. Michigan's computer-based MET stops at C1.