A8 - Tuesday and Thursday

As promised, schedule for next week's mock exams.


Please try to be in class and ready to start in good time. Email to the usual address if you have doubts.


A reminder of the rest of the next three weeks:


28 Feb 
&           Mock Exams - see below
1 Mar   
6 Mar  Exam review day, done with a bit of oomph!
8 Mar  Vocabulary and Grammar from Unit 7 of Coursebook: Reported Speech, Health, Word Formation
13 Mar  (provisionally) Full Results & Feedback - hopefully by 1-1 tutorial.


Exams Schedule


A87
Tuesday 28 Feb
Use of English
Listening
Thursday 1 Mar
Writing
Reading

A88
Tuesday 28 Feb
Writing
Reading
Thursday 1 Mar
Use of English
Listening


Brian

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CAE/Level 8

Get to know the Writing Exam.


Take a look through your coursebook Ready for CAE - 

Can you

• make a list of the different types of writing question
• divide them according to 
• which part of the writing exam you can find them in
• if you've written them before (in your language or English)
• how (in)formal they are

You'll find the CAE Handbook helpful too.

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CAE Seminar in Madrid

Another weekend, so, fortified with two cups of coffee I made the long journey (about 10 minutes, actually) to another session for teachers at the British Council's main building on Paseo Martinez Campos. Here it is at 1015 on Saturday morning!

This morning there was some more useful information direct from the horse's mouth about the updated writing exam.

Marking your work

There was an excellent summary of how your marks are decided. To summarise for you:

2 points - unsatisfactory because it's not easy to understand in parts and/or you've not answered the question in some way

3 points - satisfactory because your errors don't affect communication

4 points - your writing makes a postive effect on the reader

5 points - you manage a very positve effect because you've been ambitious in your language

Preparing to write

The presenter (who is hiding behind the lady in the black coat in the next picture!) suggested you always ask yourself 4 questions about any task:

1. What type of text do they want?
   
2. Who's going to read it?
   
3. What's it about?
   
4. What must it say?

Common Problems

Finally, she gave us a list of examples of reasons why candidates give poor answers.

• People do the wrong task (see number 1 above)
• people fail to include everything the quiestion asks for (see number 4 above!)
• not enough suitable vocabulary for the topic of the question
• too much language copied directly from the question in the set question

Miles & I will have a copy of some materials from this session soon which we'll be able to pass on to you during the course.

CAE Writing Seminar in Madrid