Somebody has told you that you need B2 English. They have probably not told you what B2 is, how far you are from it, or how long it takes to get there. The label comes from the Common European Framework of Reference — the CEFR — which is the scale most of the world now uses to describe language ability, and which every level of our own programme is mapped against.
It runs from A1 to C2. What follows is what those letters look like from inside a classroom, rather than from inside a document.
A1 and A2 — the foundations
At A1 you can handle the predictable: introduce yourself, order food, ask where something is. You understand people when they slow down for you. At A2 the predictable gets wider — you can describe your background, your family, your work, and hold a short conversation as long as it stays on familiar ground.
This is a real and useful level. It is not, however, a level at which you can study a degree, and no honest centre will tell you otherwise. If this is where you are, you are roughly six months of full-time study away from where a university wants you.
B1 and B2 — where university becomes possible
B1 is the point where you stop translating in your head. You can follow the main thread of a discussion, explain an opinion, and deal with most of what travel and daily life throw at you. You will still lose the plot in a fast lecture.
B2 is the level most universities actually mean when they say “good English”. You can follow a lecture on a subject you know, argue a position, write something structured, and talk to a native speaker without either of you working especially hard. This is the bar for most undergraduate entry, and it is the level our five-level ladder is built to deliver.
B2 is not the level where English stops being difficult. It is the level where English stops being the thing standing in your way.
C1 and C2 — beyond the requirement
C1 means you can operate in academic and professional settings without allowances being made for you: long texts, implied meaning, fluent argument. C2 is ease — nuance, idiom, register, the ability to summarise complicated material and sound like yourself doing it.
Most students do not need C2 to get in. Many find they want C1 once they arrive, because the gap between passing the entry requirement and being comfortable in a seminar is wider than the requirement admits.
How this maps to a test score
Universities usually ask for a test score rather than a CEFR letter. As a rough guide, B1 sits around IELTS 4.0–5.0, B2 around 5.5–6.5, and C1 around 7.0–8.0. Treat that as orientation, not as a promise: every institution sets its own bar, some set different bars for different faculties, and the only number that counts is the one in the offer letter you are working toward.
Finding out where you actually are
Self-assessment is unreliable in both directions. Students who read well overestimate; students who are shy about speaking underestimate. Our placement test takes about twenty minutes, returns a CEFR band, and is reviewed by a teacher rather than left to the software — and it is free, because the alternative is enrolling you at the wrong level, which helps nobody.
If you already know roughly where you stand and want to see the route from here to a university place, the planner will lay it out with the timeline and the published costs.