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CAE Use of English Part 5 detailed tips
Now that you have a strategy for time management during the Use of English section of the exam, let’s look at exactly how to approach part 5. Remember, this is the only section of the exam where you can get one point even if your answer is not 100% correct (in that case you will get two points). This means that you can try and get at least one point even if you don’t think you can get both of them. Typically, each correct answer has a grammar component and a vocabulary component. If you think of it this way, you might be able to find some...
read moreCAE Use of English time management
The Use of English is a tricky part of the exam and you can improve your score by using good time management. You have 60 minutes to complete the five parts of this section of the exam. First, let’s look at how many points are available in each part of this paper: Part 1: 12 questions, 12 points Part 2: 15 questions, 15 points Part 3: 10 questions, 10 points Part 4: 5 questions, 10 points (2 points per correct answer) Part 5: 8 questions, 16 points (answers can receive 0, 1 or 2 points) Here is how I would organize my 60 minutes, I...
read moreThe speech accent archive
The speech accent archive is a project run by Stephen H. Weinberger at the George Mason University Program of Linguistics. He and his colleagues and students have collected and phonetically transcribed hundreds of speech samples from English native speakers and learners from around the world. Everyone reads the same short script so you can really hear the differences in accent! It’s a fun way to travel around the world, linguistically! Below you can see the map of speakers in Europe, click the image to go to the page:
read moreBad grammar: to how people boring angry make!
There really is nothing quite so tedious and boring as a prescriptive grammarian. And I’m a native speaker, and an English teacher with a section about grammar on his blog! I really have a lot of sympathy for people who are learning English. Let me explain what I mean by “prescriptive grammar.” To paraphrase the linguist David Brazil, a grammarian must begin from one of the following assumptions: We can discover the rules of grammar by assuming that when people speak or write, their motivation is the production of what we...
read moreSomething new to read, every day
Every weekday morning, I get an email from Delancey Place. It’s a non-profit organisation that sends short excerpts from non-fiction books and if you buy the book through the link they provide to Amazon, they make a donation to children’s literacy programmes. For me, it’s a short piece of good writing I can enjoy when I have a 5 minute break in my day. For you, it could be a nice way to have a broad choice of things to read in English. In the email from 1 May, you can read a very negative reaction to the introduction of...
read moreThis I Believe–Essays from ordinary Americans
It’s difficult to become a good writer without spending a lot of time reading good writing. And I think we all know the quality of most of the writing on Facebook and Instagram. So where do you find good writing that’s not 350 pages long? One place where you can read (and listen to!) short essays about hundreds of different topics is at This I Believe. The website is a revived version of a radio programme in the 1950s where people could listen to essays from famous people talking about their beliefs and motivations. The new...
read moreThere is no “I” in academic writing
The obligation to write in the correct style does not only apply to examinations. The author of this article is struggling with the rigid constraints of academic style. I am having the same struggle as I complete my master’s degree. It’s very strange having to write about what I think without being allowed to use the word “I”! But unfortunately, this is just the way things are. This is the style and fighting against it will only get me a bad mark. There are a number of complex social reasons behind the different...
read moreIELTS Speaking Criteria
You have probably read a lot about what you need to do to get a good score on the IELTS speaking test. Unfortunately, a lot of this information is hard to understand. But the British Council has recently published a series of videos that I think really explains these requirements well. In the IELTS speaking test, you will be given scores in 4 areas: Fluency & Coherence Lexical Range Grammatical Accuracy Pronunciation To understand exactly what is included (and not included) in each of these categories, watch the videos on the British...
read moreWrite emails easily with a new app
Email Writer is a new app for iPhone, iPad and Android which will allow you to select from thousands of sentence combinations so you can write your business emails quickly and easily. Sometimes you don’t want to look for the right preposition or expression when you’re in a hurry and this app will be a huge help in those situations. Watch the video to see how it works! The maker of the app also runs The Business English Blog with regular updates, exercises and activities. If you need to practice business English, I recommend...
read moreKaraoke at home
Doing grammar exercises is not the only way to improve your English! Sometimes you just want to have a little fun and sing a song. Karaoke Party is a clever website where you can sing a bunch of different songs for free. You can search by genre, year or keyword and you will see a flash video with or without the words and a representation of the melody (kind of like SingStar for the PS3). You can already sing a few songs without registering, if you register you will get more. There is a paid membership if you want access to all the songs...
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