The C1 course, anchored to the Cambridge C1 Advanced exam. Ten units of The Oxford Term — Eleanor, a retired Oxford tutor in rhetoric, and Sam, her former student, meet weekly to examine how educated British English actually works: the hedges, the understatement, the codes. 100 minutes of podcast audio, everything built from the same unit — and a separate 20-week exam track to the certificate.
The numbers are the route: e-book first, then ears before eyes — listen to the episode before the transcript tasks — and the game seals the unit.
Unit 2 “The Reference Letter”: the full interactive e-book — the reading, the Grammar Clinic on the coded genre, and the vocabulary bank. Units 1–2 live.
Open the e-book → 2The Tutorial: two candidates, two letters — and “punctual” as a fire alarm. The Fieldwork: the ambiguous lexicon and the adjective ladder. Ears first! (Audio in production; the script is on the page.)
Listen → 3The full episode script, word for word — the twenty terms in amber, every quoted specimen in teal — with numbered tasks including a translation drill.
Do the tasks → 4You are hiring: nine coded letters to translate, one hedge-free sentence to write, and one offer to make before someone else does.
Play →Little and often beats long and rare. Two tiny habits, right here: your words come back on the day your memory needs them, and your streak keeps you honest (one missed day is forgiven each week).
Spaced repetition — each phrase returns on the day your memory needs it.
Tap when you practise — listening, reading, playing: it all counts.
One unit, one device of the language — how English says what it doesn't say. Units open as they are authored.
Finish the review on the unit page first — then claim your star and print your certificate.
A separate extension for after the ten units: one part of the real C1 Advanced exam per week, a mini-mock every fourth week, and a full-mock block in weeks 17–20.
🎓 C1 Advanced Exam Track: the 20-week map, all four papers part by part, the cross-text and abstract-discussion weeks, and the score bands — including the stretch target: Grade A certifies at C2. Open the track →1 h 30 · 8 parts · 56 questions · 40% — including the cross-text task unique to C1.
1 h 30 · essay + one of three genres · 220–260 words each · 20%.
≈40 min · 4 parts · 30 questions · 20% · attitude and agreement throughout.
15 min per pair · 4 parts · 20% · ending in five minutes of abstract discussion.
Rhetoric in objects — marginalia, manuscripts, and the letters in which nothing is quite said.
Colleges, quads and questions: where big ideas learned to speak English.
The university behind your exam — and the river that taught it to think.