How to decide how close you are to an ideal LPE candidate

You can take the LPE online practice test to find out your score, but another way to judge is:

Are you an autonomous user of the English language in a range of contexts?  Do you read at the Guardian Weekly level comfortably without a dictionary?  Do you comfortably read a book without a dictionary?  Do you comfortably watch a film in the original version?  Do you regularly interact with native speakers comfortably in a range of conversational situations?  Do you write most of your emails in English?  Do you mostly answer the phone in English?

Or are you still a student of the language?  Do you spend a lot of time doing exercises with your nose in the grammar book or dictionary.  Are the books you consult most ones designed for learners of English or for native English speakers?

The LPE exam is designed to measure how autonomous and efficient (with time) you are using the language without grammar books or dictionaries or other help.

Listening and reading sites - many with transcripts

Name of site - author	Weblink
The English Blog	http://www.jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/
Guardian Weekly Learn English	http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/learningenglish  http://www.onestopenglish.com/
New York Times learning blog	http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/
United Nations multimedia	http://www.unmultimedia.org/ http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/21stcentury/  http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unia/
ABC (C1)	http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/ http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/ http://www.abc.net.au/tv/
BBC	http://news.bbc.co.uk/   http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/ Easier for building up confidence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/englishatwork/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/expressenglish/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/talkaboutenglish/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/talkingbusiness/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/getthatjob/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/btp/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/
TED	http://www.ted.com/ http://www.ted.com/speakers
British Council	http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/ http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/business-and-work http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/professionals-podcasts
Euronews (B2)	Main news stories http://www.euronews.net/
Newsweek	http://www.newsweek.com/
Guardian Weekly	http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/
Times online	http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/