Work through CELPIP Reading one task type at a time. The practice set is organised around four of them: Reading Correspondence, Reading to Apply a Diagram, Reading for Information, and Reading for Viewpoints.
Open a part above and you land on its own page: what that part asks of you, the questions available for it, and the things people usually want answered before starting. Each exercise then opens with the full passage, followed by its questions. Answer at your own pace - correct and incorrect choices are marked as you work, so you can trace a wrong answer back to the line you misread instead of only learning that you missed it.
Treat the diagram task as its own skill. It asks you to move between a picture and a piece of writing rather than to read straight through, and learners who are comfortable with the other three often lose ground there simply because they have practised it least.
Nothing on this page is timed. That is deliberate: this is where you slow down and work out how a question is built, so that recognising the pattern costs you no thought at all once the clock is running in a full mock test.
Exercises marked FREE need no subscription. A Pro membership opens the rest of the reading set.
CELPIP Reading Practice: the full guide
What is the CELPIP Reading test format?
CELPIP Reading is four parts, 38 questions, and 55 to 60 minutes on the clock. The parts are not four versions of the same task: each one changes what you are being asked to do with the text, which is why practising them separately is worth more than reading a lot in general.
Everything is on screen, everything is multiple choice, and you can move within a part but not back to one you have finished. That last detail matters more than it sounds - it means a part you rush is gone.
CELPIP Reading: the four parts
Part
What it asks
Questions
Part 1 - Correspondence
Read a letter or email, then reply in context
11
Part 2 - Apply a Diagram
Move between a picture and a piece of writing
8
Part 3 - Information
Match statements to the paragraph that supports them
9
Part 4 - Viewpoints
Track competing opinions in an article and comment
10
Structure and timing as published by Paragon Testing on celpip.ca; per-part counts verified against our own question catalogue.
How many questions are on the CELPIP Reading test?
38, split 11 / 8 / 9 / 10 across the four parts. That works out to a little over 90 seconds per question, but the time is not meant to be spread evenly: Part 2 rewards a quick scan of the diagram before you read anything, while Part 4 needs you to hold two or three opinions apart in your head and is where most people lose the clock.
A useful way to read the split: Correspondence and Viewpoints are 21 of the 38 questions between them. If your score is stuck, it is usually one of those two rather than all four.
Where can I take a free CELPIP Reading practice test with answers?
On this page. Every part of CELPIP Reading above has free exercises, they need no card, and you can start without an account. Each one opens with the full passage, then its questions, and marks your choices as you work so you can trace a wrong answer back to the line you misread.
Being straight about the limit: the free set is a sample of each part rather than the whole bank, and full-length timed mock tests are a Pro feature. What you can do for nothing is work every part type, see the answer key, and find out where you actually stand before deciding whether to pay.
Try a sample CELPIP Reading question
Here is the shape of a Part 3 item - Reading for Information, where each statement has to be matched to the paragraph that actually supports it. This one is written for this page, not taken from a real test.
Passage extract
The Brookfield Community Garden allots plots on a first-come basis each March. Plot holders are asked to keep paths clear and to compost their own green waste. The site has no water connection of its own; members draw from the rainwater tanks by the north gate, which the committee refills in dry spells.
Which statement is supported by the passage?
A Plots are assigned by a committee vote each spring.
B Members are responsible for composting the green waste they produce.
C The garden is connected to the municipal water supply.
D Paths are cleared by a paid groundskeeper.
Answer: B. The text says plot holders "are asked to ... compost their own green waste", which is exactly B. A fails on "committee vote" - allotment is first-come. C is contradicted outright: the site "has no water connection of its own". D invents a groundskeeper the passage never mentions. This is the habit Part 3 is really testing: choose the statement the words support, not the one that sounds like a reasonable way to run a garden.
How is CELPIP Reading scored?
Every question is right or wrong - there is no partial credit and no penalty for guessing, so never leave one blank. Your raw count converts to a level, and because the questions are not weighted, a Part 2 item is worth exactly as much as a Part 4 one despite being far quicker to answer.
That has a practical consequence worth acting on: if you are running out of time, spend the last minutes on the parts with the cheapest questions rather than on the hardest one you are still stuck in. Scores run from 1 to 12 on a scale aligned to the Canadian Language Benchmarks. What you need depends on why you are sitting the exam - IRCC publishes the current minimums, and those are the numbers to work back from.
Frequently asked questions
They are different rather than strictly harder. CELPIP passages are shorter and the English is North American, but the question formats are less familiar to most test takers - particularly Reading to Apply a Diagram, which has no IELTS equivalent. People moving across usually find the reading itself easier and the task types stranger.
No. The test moves forward only, so a part you leave early is finished. Practise pacing per part rather than across the whole section.
Roughly 12 to 15 minutes each is a workable split, but bias it: Reading to Apply a Diagram is usually the fastest once you know the format, which buys you time for Reading for Viewpoints at the end.
It helps. CELPIP is written for a Canadian context, so everyday terms, workplace situations and place references lean North American. That is a reason to practise on CELPIP material specifically rather than on general English reading.
It depends on your program - CLB 7 in each ability is the Federal Skilled Worker threshold, for example. Check the current IRCC requirement for the stream you are applying under before setting a target.