Cambridge C2 Proficiency (CPE) — All Questions

The board insisted that every proposal ___ reviewed by an independent auditor.

• a.is
• b.would be
• c.was
• d.be✓

After the mandative verb 'insist that', the subjunctive uses the base form 'be' for all persons, regardless of the subject. 'Is' and 'was' are indicative and incorrect here.

So ___ that even her critics fell silent.

• a.her delivery was persuasive
• b.persuasive her delivery was
• c.was persuasive her delivery
• d.persuasive was her delivery✓

Fronting 'So + adjective' forces inversion of verb and subject: 'So persuasive was her delivery that...'. The other orders fail to invert correctly.

It's high time the authorities ___ something about the crumbling roads.

• a.will do
• b.have done
• c.do
• d.did✓

'It's high time' is followed by the unreal past (past simple) to express that action is overdue: 'It's high time they did something.' The present or future is incorrect.

Only after the results were published ___ the scale of the error.

• a.did we realize✓
• b.we realized
• c.we did realize
• d.realized we

The restrictive fronted adverbial 'Only after...' triggers subject-auxiliary inversion in the main clause: 'did we realize'. Plain word order is ungrammatical here.

She speaks as though she ___ there herself, but in fact she only read about it.

• a.would be
• b.has been
• c.was
• d.had been✓

'As though/as if' describing something contrary to past fact takes the past perfect: 'as though she had been there'. This marks the unreal, hypothetical past.