Writing an essay for the B2 first exam
is not difficult. Really, it's not, if you know what and
what not to do. My name is Toby, this is SMASH Englis,h and here are the five
biggest most common mistakes that students make when writing their essay
for the B2 First exam. One of the criteria that the examiners
are marking your essays on is called "content". This is about two things.
One: if the content of your essay is relevant to the topic and question and
Two: if the target reader is informed. Being informed here means that the
examiner can understand the topic, the question and the three prompts of the
essay by reading your essay. If your essay is too short then you cannot
include all the details necessary to write the essay and also you're not
including enough material for the examiner to assess. Remember the examiner
is trying to assess your language if you don't produce enough then how can the
examiner mark it? On the other hand, if your answer is too long then you will
start including irrelevant information and this will reduce your marks for
content. Furthermore if you write in very long sentences and add lots of
unnecessary words this can make your essay harder to follow and this can hurt
your marks for communicative achievement, but we will talk about that later. So,
please try to aim for between 140 to 190 words. An easy way to do this is to write
two sentences in your introduction, three sentences about your first prompt, three
sentences about your second prompt, three sentences about your third prompt and
three sentences in your conclusion. If you do that your word count will be
about right. Do not count your words! In the exam you do not have time to spend
counting words. No! What are you doing!? Don't do that! When you're writing your essay ask
yourself this question: "can the examiner understand the topic, the question and
the prompts by reading the essay?". If the answer is no then I'm sorry but you need
to start again. An easy way to ensure the examiner can understand the topic and
the question is to include that information in your introduction. I
always tell my students to introduce their essay with a general statement
about the topic, not about the question, but about the topic. For example if the
essay is about whether sports in school should be obligatory they could write a
statement about how important sport is then I ask my students to rephrase the
question. This means you take the question and you
write it again but this time in your own words.
This way the examiner can understand the topic and the question your essay is
answering after only the first two sentences. This is great for your marks
in content and also for organization and communicative achievement because you
have a clear introduction to your essay. Yes, don't forget the introduction. Making
sure you talk about each prompt is easy! Your essay should be 5 paragraphs long.
The first paragraph of course is your introduction. The last paragraph is your
conclusion. So, this leaves three paragraphs: one for each prompt. That
way you can never forget to include one. I know planning is boring. When I was at
school I did not plan anything. When I was at university I didn't really plan
either! Yeah... I shouldn't be telling you that should I? But you must if you want to
get top marks for communicative achievement. Here the examiner is
assessing you to see if you can hold the reader's attention and that means that
your ideas are logical and easy to follow. Not only within paragraphs but
also between paragraphs. This means that the body of your paragraphs must be
logical. So open each of your paragraphs with a statement, follow this by an
explanation and then conclude with an example or perhaps an example of a
solution to a problem depending on what the question is. Why don't we look at an
example? Obesity is becoming an increasing problem in society. Do you
think this problem can be solved? Write about one: junk food, two: education, three:
your own idea. This question is asking whether we believe there is a solution
to a problem. We should try to mention possible examples of solutions for each
prompt. Let's look at a possible paragraph about junk food. Firstly one of
the reasons people are putting on weight is diet. Today's modern lifestyle often
means people do not have the time to prepare meals at home and so they need
to eat precooked meals which are often unhealthy. If food companies decided to
reduce the salt and fat content of their foods perhaps this problem could be
avoided. Here we have a statement, followed by an explanation, which links
the prompt to the question, and finally an example of a possible solution. There
is a logical progression to the paragraph. The reader can easily
understand the thought process of the writer. But it gets more complicated! Not
only do we need to be logical within paragraphs but also logical between
paragraphs. For example: the last
paragraph we saw was about junk food and its relation to obesity, can this problem
be solved? Well I want my next paragraph to be about education but to do that I
must somehow link junk food consumption and education. So there is a logical
development in my argument. So all the prompts are somehow linked together. So
in this example maybe we could talk about how in school they should educate
children about having a healthy diet. Then after that I want my next paragraph
to be sport so I could talk about how sport should be compulsory in school.
This is why you must plan you must think of your own prompt and then you need to
order the prompts before you start writing so you can connect them all
logically in the essay. If you do this you will score fantastically in
communicative achievement so please do it! One way to avoid oversimplification is
not being too personal. Don't talk about yourself and don't talk about how the
issues relate to you. Instead try to talk about them generally. Talk about Society.
For example: if you have a question about pollution don't talk about how you
recycle or about how the area where you live is dirty and polluted, but instead
talk about how everyone could or should be recycling to reduce waste globally.
Only make things personal and about you in the conclusion where you can finally
give your opinion. Oh yeah and don't give your opinion before the conclusion! Oh!
The amount of times I have seen essays begin with the word "I"! Oh my gosh!
Don't do that! Another way to talk about complex ideas is to use
hypothetical language, speculative language. Use Unreal tenses! This means
use modal verbs and use unreal conditionals, like the second conditional
or the third conditional. It's not that difficult to do! Let's have a look at an
example: Here a possible solution is given to the
problem but instead of saying "if food companies reduce salt and fat content
the problem will be solved" it is presented hypothetically with a second
conditional. This is what examiner's mean by complex ideas and they are necessary
to score high marks. Be hypothetical, be speculative. Instead of talking about
what is, talk about what could be or what should be. Of course, one of the criteria that the
examiners are looking at is called "language". Wow! How surprising! In order to
pass with high marks you must use some less common lexis. This basically means
specialized language about specific topics ,topics that are less familiar to
you. This is why, when planning (because you're going to plan) I tell my students
to write a list of vocabulary that they can think of about the topic in general
and also about the prompts then they can choose some of this vocabulary when they
are writing their essay to score higher marks. For example this essay question is
about obesity so some general vocabulary could be "putting on weight", "overweight",
"lose weight", "get in shape", "sedentary lifestyle". The first prompt is junk food
so vocabulary could be "saturated fat", "high salt content high", "sugar content",
"fattening", the second prompt is education so we could have "educational
institutions", "curriculum", "assignments". For the third prompt I have chosen the topic
sports so potential vocabulary could be "active lifestyle", "team sports", "working
towards a goal", "to be highly motivated". Now of course you don't have to use lots
and lots of less common lexis. This is a B2 exam! Just three or four words would
be enough! However plan so you don't leave the exam room and think "ah put on
weight great! That's a great expression! Why didn't I use that!? Oh yes! Because I
didn't plan!" So what you need to remember is: Number one: try not to write too many
or too few words try to stick between 140 to 190 and don't count your words to
check that's ridiculous you don't have time!
Make sure you include every single prompt and make sure you answer the
question. Remember the examiner should be able to understand the topic the
question and the prompts by reading your answer! And Number three: plan your essay!
This is vital to ensure that your essay is logical both within the paragraphs
and between them. Number four: don't simplify things, don't make things too
personal. Try to keep things general! Don't talk about what is but talk about
what could be or what should be, use unreal tenses, second conditionals and
third conditionals. This is good for your "language" because you will get higher
marks for grammar and it's also good for "communicative achievement" because you
are talking about complex issues. And number five: use less common lexis
related to the topic. Do you notice how in your English books everything is
organized by a topic: one module might be on the environment, the next on diet and
food, the next one on sport, the next on jobs? Well this is why it's organized
that way ,so you have these word groups in your head that you can reproduce at a
time like this. So, please put it to good use! And with that we are finished now
you know the five biggest mistakes to avoid when writing your essay for the B2
First Cambridge exam. If you liked the video
don't forget to SMASH that like button, subscribe if you haven't already, leave a
comment down below. My name is Toby and this was SMASH English!
