Reading in English at level C1

You understand long, complex texts, literary or technical, and you catch the nuances of style and the meaning between the lines.

• A1
• A2
• B1
• B2
• C1

This is how each text begins at level C1:

• Short story · Oscar WildeThe Canterville Ghost

  When Mr Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing. There was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr Otis.

• CustomConkers: a string, a nut and a long October

  Walk through a British park in October and you will hear a soft thud in the grass. It is a green ball, bristling with spikes, falling from a horse chestnut. Press one with your boot and it splits open, revealing a seed so glossy that it looks polished.

• CustomDogger, Fisher, German Bight: the Shipping Forecast

  Turn on BBC Radio 4 just before one o'clock in the morning and you will hear a gentle piece of orchestral music, then a calm voice reading what sounds like a litany: Viking, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight. After each name come numbers, compass points and a handful of short, strange words.

• ScienceWhy is the sky blue and the sunset red?

  At noon on a clear day the sky is a deep, even blue. By evening the same sun is a red or orange disc low over the horizon, and the clouds around it burn the same colours. Nothing has happened to the sun in between. The light has simply taken a different route to reach you.

• ScienceWhy does the sea go in and out?

  The Moon is nearly 400,000 kilometres away, yet twice a day it moves the sea. Near Bristol, the water rises and falls by more than 12 metres. Spend a day on almost any British beach and you will see the sea change its mind. In the morning it may lie half a mile away, beyond a wide expanse of rippled sand. By lunchtime it is lapping at your deckchair. By teatime it has retreated again, leaving pools, seaweed and the occasional surprised crab.