Cambridge C2 Proficiency (CPE) — All Questions

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

• a.is
• b.be✓
• c.was
• d.would 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.was persuasive her delivery
• c.persuasive her delivery was
• 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.did✓
• b.do
• c.have done
• d.will do

'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.we realised
• b.realised we
• c.did we realise✓
• d.we did realise

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

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

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

'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.