Cambridge English exams - your questions answered! Useful tips! FCE, CAE and CPE tips and advice.

hello and welcome to to the point english with ben i'm ben and i have a special video for you today because as you can see i'm not alone i have a special guest frank carriso the english exam expert hi frank nice to see you nice to see you again ben um i pronounced your name with the english pronunciation but you could pronounce it with the spanish pronunciation exactly yeah um but those of you who don't know frank um i is this this is the second interview i i've done with frank um i'll put in the description our first interview which is i i um uploaded in two parts there you can learn a little bit more about frankie's background and a lot of questions that he very generously answered about the cambridge english exams but i'm going to be asking him some more questions today also i highly recommend you check out frank's podcast what do you say in english which i think you can find on most it's on spotify isn't it frank and yeah it's um the main hosting is anchor and anchor belongs to spotify so yeah it's basically a spotify uh podcast and then it's available in other major platforms perfect so i'll i'm going to put the uh put a link to that in the description to frank's podcast so today we're going to frank is going and we are going to be talking about different questions that um members of my telegram group have put to me um but first i have since we last spoke frank i've been accumulating some some questions that have come up in my my classes and through the telegram group and comments on on youtube on my youtube channel um so just a few short questions just to i have my ideas and my answers to this but i'd like to get an experts um opinion the first one this has come up so many so many times so many people have asked me this it's about clocks and watches in the exam um some people have said they've they've done the exam and they weren't allowed to wear a watch um obviously smart watches are not allowed um as far as i know um what what for the um for the exam what is the situation that uh what are you aware of are watches allowed uh any electronic device actually any device that have that can provide any type of connection um or has any type of connectivity you know like smart watches of course smartphones um even mp3 players or anything ebook readers or tablets anything that's remotely electronic is not allowed in the exam you have to they basically they get confiscated right when you get to the exam center they actually recommend uh test takers candidates to come to the exam center of course with the phone i mean because they need the phone but if they have for example a smart watch that has to be um that's taken away and put in a bag in a plastic bag with a candidate's name a candidate number all the details that that come in the because every table when you sit at a table the table will have a tag um on top of it with your name candidate number the the test the exam you're taking all the details right okay if you're wearing a wristwatch just a regular wristwatch um and you haven't been um asked to you know give it to the supervisor to keep it for you then you have to take it off your wrist and put it in front of you on the table okay it has to be visible you cannot uh be wearing the wristwatch in your wrist on your wrist during the exam i mean it has to be uh you have to remove it and place it in front of you on the table okay because and and obviously time time management is very important in many parts of the exam especially the reading and use of english and the writing so for those people who have a smart watch that they won't be able to to wear or even have on their desk will there be a clock in the in the examination center on the wall that they could not only one i mean sometimes depending on the size of the room the exam center will have like different clocks distributed along the different walls of the of the exam room there you will probably have one where the invigilator is you know at the back and then on the sides i mean depending on how big the room is there will be two other clocks basically it's usually the those classic clocks yeah um yeah and and also the invigilator has to write down the starting time and the finishing time and the the invigilator has to announce when they have 10 minutes and five minutes to finish right so that yeah that's that will help them with the time management and just knowing when to finish whatever task they're on okay a different question now um about the speaking paper in particular a few students have asked me about the how formal the speaking has to be whether they whether they have to speak in a quite a formal way and i think the reason people ask this question is because a lot of a lot of young people nowadays learn their english or are influenced for by um gaming or youtube videos and they tend to learn a lot of slang expressions um and i think this question is how how formal does the speaking have to be is really more referring to how how much slang can they use in the speaking is this is this really just about common sense or it's yeah yeah you're right it's it's basically about common sense i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't for example up even as a as an examiner for example that you know an examiner can can listen to students and and they might be able to recognize some of the slang words that they used but i think what matters is really communication and how you can convey a message for example with you know words that the other person will be able to understand i mean of course the examiner will have much more experience and but they might not be acquainted with like you know all the slang words and you know like different dialects and varieties of english you know yeah um but in terms of using slangs honestly i would be surprised if if students come up in the exam and probably for advanced levels or proficiency levels that might be true but still i mean they have to think about this as a kind of unmarked i wouldn't like to say formal conversation but it's when you talk to a a strange person like someone you've never met yeah you wouldn't probably use you know like a lot of the words and or slang terms that might be common in a friend-to-friend conversation you know yeah has to be appropriate for the to the situation so and i think at an advanced or proficiency level you should have alternative vocabulary if you you don't have to use the slang expressions you should know other other ways of expressing the same idea think yeah think of it think of it this way um would you use slang terms in in a job interview yeah of course not no of course yeah i mean yeah and it's not because the exam because i think that i know that students want to impress the examiners that's a common thing and that's totally fine um you know you certainly have very little time um if you think of it i mean the the whole exam for example advanced is 15 minutes but if you take out the time i think we've we've talked about this but if you take take out the time of the instructions the time that the other candidate speaks i mean you for yourself as a candidate how much time do you have not much no so do you really can you really show that you have a level of english a certain level of english in like what seven minutes probably less so i know that that students worry about you know producing impressive language but yeah i would say that use common sense yeah i think that we have another question about that particular area about how well we'll get we'll come to that in a moment i think is that that's an interesting question i just have a couple of quick questions about the writing um part of the exam this is a question i've i've had so many times and i've actually heard teachers say something that i don't agree with but i'll let you give your opinion first is it okay to use phrasal verbs in essays the essay that's a very common question um okay so i don't know where honestly where this idea came from like phrasal verbs are informal in nature um i would say that most phrasal verbs can be informal or would definitely be informal um especially because you you usually have like the latin based or greek based equivalent of that phrasal verb in english you know yeah um and usually you know that latinate words words that have a latin origin tend to be more formal than you know the the the germanic counterparts so to speak yeah um but not really i mean i i think it depends on the phrasal verb exactly yeah when you think of a journal and you talk about a research the scientists carried out a research so the verb the phrasal verb carry out for example it's not informal it's actually the the appropriate phrasal verb that you can use in that situation so it's perfectly normal i think it depends on the phrasal verb exactly well that's what i say exactly because that's what i usually say i think phrasal verbs are like any vocabulary you have more informal phrasal verbs which would be inappropriate for an essay but lots of phrasal verbs which i mean an essay doesn't have to be excessively formal anyway but um yeah carryout's a good example ramp up these are perfectly good for essays so but i have actually seen or heard uh or teachers or websites saying you shouldn't use phrasal verbs in the essays and that's i think it's it's logical yes it's a little more complicated than that and if it you have to really understand the lexical um i would say charge or i don't know the lexical weight of the phrasal verb like um in what context is it used and things like that i think doing a little bit of research for example running a search on google for example if you're not acquainted with corpus linguistics you know like i'm going into a database of of recorded language and then you see the context you can see the context in which the word is used i mean but google can serve for that i mean if you uh if you run a search in google with a phrasal verb or any dictionary usually comes with these features like things like okay see collocations with this verb and then you can see the collocations and you can judge yourself whether those collocations are formal or informal yeah it's part of part of learning a language or knowing a language isn't it just to know which which words in general are appropriate for certain situations and and yeah i i always recommend that right it's something i suggest is to to have a set of adjectives that you can use in any situation a set of phrasal verbs that you could use in some writings and only for the exam not for general learning but um and just be sure with those ten phrasal verbs you're not going to use all of them in the writing but you could use one or two of them and be comfortable that they are appropriate so yeah it's again common sense which could be the answer to many of these questions um another question about the writing is kind of similar but somebody asked me about abbreviations in writing i i received a writing composition with some abbreviations they used like btw instead of by the way which would be straight i can't remember what i think it was probably a letter so which is an informal sort of letter to a friend yeah yeah i mean like for example like you uh yeah you instead the the letter you and the letter u instead of the the word you and you know things like that i mean um well i think honestly i would probably stay away from from using abbreviations because one of the things that i for in my case i tell my students is playing it safe i think it's better to play safe and and not try to be like overly um creative um i know that what what students want to do is they want to impress the examiner they want to let the examiner know i know this i know that but more than impressing the examiner in that way i think it's better if you try to avoid pitfalls you know like common things that um you know like try it's just basically playing it safe i mean why risking why risking for example if you're not sure about using this because let's be honest um even though we have a target reader you know but you you have a target reader given by the task actually the target reader will not be that target reader it will be the examiner basically and you're risking that the examiner may not be acquainted with a particular abbreviation for example or a particular acronym yeah of of a word yeah and and i think that i don't know i would say i would recommend students you know stay away i agree i think i don't think you're gonna get i don't think they're gonna get extra marks for using btw instead of writing by the way so potentially they could it's risky and it's unnecessarily risky i think and yeah just just write the words and another thing is that there's even the word count doesn't count you might say um word count because there's nothing in the criteria that says oh the student wrote this number of words there's nothing about that no but but in a way you know they put the word count for something because they know that within that range of words you can produce a quality a good quality answer so think of it as word count because btw for example is it one word or three words i guess it will be counted as one word but because there's no spaces so yeah i don't know but but yeah it's just it's it's kind of a gray area yeah it's a gray area where you don't want to be exactly yeah unnecessary it's uh because and this is something which is true i mean examiners usually look at language and there are gray areas in that language that that you basically don't have a clear idea what to judge and then you base your judgment on other things that are more certain so the more gray areas you have in in a piece of text for example the the worse it's going to be for you yeah i don't know i don't know if i'm making myself clear perfectly yeah yeah perfectly i understand it as you said when in all the writing tasks you have to think you have to the target reader is important because it influences on your register but you and this is something i i recommend to my students is to put yourself in the shoes of the examiner imagine you're you're marking yourself or you have to mark just try to for positive things too you know what what do you what would you want to see as an examiner would you want to see abbreviations probably not you just want to see the words written it's kind of a bit lazy do they yeah do they really help getting the message across and yeah yeah exactly that's and add to the content is it adding anything i don't think so okay perfect uh so now these are questions that i got from members of my telegram group when i told them i was going to be interviewing you so the first couple i think the first three questions are related to the speaking paper of the exam um the first one is from wowwee uh de la cruise or de la crosse i think it's louder or laura is her real name but um i would like to ask frank how a candidate is graded if they use good grammar and are fluent and confident when speaking but without using enough c2 vocabulary obviously this is for the proficiency but it could be related to any of the b2 first to c1 advanced so imagine they're a really good grammar fluent confident but they don't use enough vocabulary for that level um i think um what what students need to remember is the variety of the language i think it's using for example language that is appropriate to the situation to the uh to the purpose they they don't have to come up with such convoluted vocabulary you know like really complicated vocabulary um because and it's it's understandable i mean even in class i mean when i'm when i'm doing like mock speakings with my students sometimes they they use expressions that are not so natural i mean just because they want to impress me they use expressions and they they you feel as if they're like shoehorned you know like yeah forced in and you know in the in the as part of the discourse um what they need to pay attention to is not really the type of mistake well yes they have to pay attention to the type of mistake but um what they need to worry about is the frequency of those mistakes and how systematic the mistake is if they for example if a student for example just uh just to give an example conditionals you know that conditionals involve a lot of you know tenses tense uses you know like one clause is one tense the other uses another structure so controlling having control over that to produce a good quality conditional sentence takes some effort and some some knowledge so if i notice for example that a student is fluent but keeps mixing up tenses in the conditionals i do not i do not pay attention for example oh here you said i wanted he said i want or i will want i just look at it as of the frequency of the mistake and i say for example oh in terms of conditional this student needs um control okay okay i see yeah so if it's just it's it's just a matter of control just a matter of control yeah and if it's a repeated mistake then it's obvious they don't have control of that grammar area or whatever yeah okay uh martello marcelo marcello i don't know how to i'm not sure exactly how his name is pronounced but um so if frank could maybe discuss a little about how how we are supposed to show off in inverted commas ourselves in the speaking text having so little time and not to sound like a robot which which has memorized some advanced structures and is ready to shove them up whenever they feel appropriate so that that's kind of what you were just saying how to how can how can somebody really show off and demonstrate their fantastic level in in limited time and not sound like a robot and all those things um well uh the first of all i would i would tell your um student to really stay away from stack sentences you know like when you have these like prepared things to say um because you will never know the kinds of questions that you're going to be asked so yeah i think it it everything goes down to trying to make it sound as natural as possible if you feel for example if you remember that there's a there's a fixed phrase that you can actually use in that situation go ahead and use it i mean i think even if it doesn't sound so natural i think examiners in a way try to be very permissive you know like try to be you know like very lenient in terms of and and another thing that this is something that cambridge um does i mean it's they encourage students to attempt things like to try things and and candidates are usually awarded for the things they try to do um if you look at the the assessment scales criteria which you know they come at the back of the exam books uh sometimes you can see the scales you know like from one to five and then you have like different descriptors in every criterion yeah you know yeah um and if you look at b2 for example uh to get a five i think it's to get five points it's this students attempt um uh complex grammar structures attempt they don't even have to be successful you know like they don't have to be perfect they just attempt so okay just trying things um will get you far basically um so i hope that answers that i think so yeah i think that's interesting too because i think a lot of people have this perception of the cambridge as looking for perfection everything has to be perfect you have to use i mean in proficiency you have to get closer to perfection i guess you have to use precise vocabulary but but then again what what is perfection i mean it's kind of an ideal i think and you you nailed it because i think students have this wrong idea about perfection about for example the ideal of the native speaker for example in a way um yeah and it's it's kind of a fluffy or inconsistent in terms in linguistic terms it doesn't say much um because if you if you uh say for example oh close to a native speaker or it's like opening a con kind of worms you know like something over complicating something i mean if you say native speaker from where what region what what variety of english i mean it's it's it's comple it's it's something you can't measure yeah and and i don't believe anybody speaks perfect english there's no native speaker who speaks perfect english because it's it's impossible to define what perfect english is it's regional and um yeah there's so many variations so yeah perfection doesn't exist so you but yeah i think perhaps with the speaking the idea is to just be as natural and fluent as as possible i guess just just trying things yeah yes just just making sure that the expressions that you use fit in the context they fit in the in the elements required by the task remember that if you talk about vocabulary for example we talk about familiar and unfamiliar situations and it doesn't really matter it doesn't really matter for example that the types of words you say and as long as you can discuss unfamiliar point uh topics and you you feel comfortable with it right okay so that's that's basically it i mean um of course i mean we hear the words i mean we as a teacher myself for example i listen to my students and then oh that's a nice word that's a nice word and i always tell them words also have levels you know you have vocabulary which usually it's usually more common for c1 vocabulary which is common for c2 and i always use the the example of reservation you know that if i ask ask them for example what is the meaning of reservation and then they say well reservation is when you uh you know go to a hotel or you go to a restaurant and they keep a table for you for example and yes that's the b1 meaning but do you know any other more advanced meaning and then they get surprised when i show them the entry from the cambridge dictionary that says that there's a c2 meaning for reservation is when you have a doubt like when you have reservations about something yeah and they they open their eyes like oh [Music] so it all depends on on the context in which you use the vocabulary it doesn't have to be a an over complicated word it could be a word used in a sentence which is not common for a b1 level but more common for a c2 level yeah it's it's not uh it's not mathematics is it it's a language and you have to use the appropriate language in the situation and yeah it's interesting that as you said with b2 that word attempt i i like that that it's they they credit you for attempting something even if it's not perfect at least exactly um okay another question um still related to the speaking paper um from danny uh my question is about the way they grade accent and vocabulary during the exam i worry about it because they said both u.s and uk english are valid and accepted but that one should stay consistent and use only one of them the thing is that my english is a mix of both of them i can't tell precisely which one is predominant should i be concerned about it no oh yeah now even even in my case for example i was uh you know i was born in venezuela but probably up to my teens my english was fully american but now working here in spain it's become a mix of expressions and now for example working with brits british people i get their expressions like and the other day i was talking to a friend he's originally from new york and i remember that he was asking me about my plans and then i asked him back uh do you have any plans for monday do you have any plans for money and then he said you're sounding a little too british mister and i was like why yeah you're you're sounding a little too i think you're hanging around with too many brits yeah but yeah in a way yes i mean it's understandable there it's impossible not to be influenced by you know words and expressions from different regions yeah in my case in my case i use british expressions very often for example even though people when when i talk to other uh teachers they they usually ask me like you're american right um your english is very american yeah i mean yes definitely but then i use expressions like knackered for example which is very british and things like that and i don't know i think tell your you can tell your students that they don't have to worry about those things i mean i know that consistency is more applicable to writing yeah i was going to say the same maybe that's where he's got this idea from maybe from but nothing but definitely not speaking and when it comes to accent there is nothing in the criteria related to accent no only when when the students own first language accent like there's a lot of interference from the first language um and it's it compromises intelligibility like uh it's you it becomes difficult to decipher what they're trying to say when the first when the accent from the first language you know interferes with the production of english that's the only part in which they would need to worry about right but in terms of mixing vocabulary no yeah as i said i think maybe uh danny had heard about the writing that you you if you use american spelling with one word like color without the you then you should also use it with i think flavor i think flavor honor flavor yeah neighbor yeah yeah but that's that's not a big problem and yeah i think it's interesting what you said about well your own example but you know a lot of young people in living in london for example now have a lot of influence from american culture gaming films music and they're using a lot of american vocabulary or what i would consider american vocabulary and even the accent that they're starting to you can tell a slight influence or an american twang in their accent and that's just the way language evolves especially when we have this hyper-connected society now so yeah danny you don't need to worry about that with the speaking yeah no no definitely not no no um okay uh before we go there's a couple of questions about well i think there's one question about writing but before that um anja or ankar i'm never sure how to pronounce your name andrea we've we've she's been a member of the the community for the telegram community for a long time but this is another quite typical question i'm sure you've heard it many times um i think i'll never feel ready to enroll for a c1 exam how do i know that i'm ready how can i recognize it should passing mock exams under real time conditions be enough in brackets she said my last teacher said i'm ready so i think that's a very common question i think very very few people feel that they're ready and if they do i think that's they're not ready because some people are so confident they're overconfident and they think they're ready i think it it i think that something that um i in my case for example like i tell my students to do is to keep a register of the timings and how um quickly you can do a an exercise within a prescribed time if you divide the time for example let's take the example of the advanced it's 90 reading and use of english it's 90 minutes and you have eight tasks if you divide it if you divide the time by the eight tasks you basically have 11 minutes and something else so roughly 12 minutes so i i always tell my students if you can do the most demanding task of for you i mean like because maybe my most demanding test is not the same for me as for you yeah um their most demanding task if they can do that in under 12 minutes they can start you know thinking like oh maybe i'm ready also the consistency of results for example if you do a task let's say five which is the one of the long readings um if you can consistently get more than 60 percent of the mark then maybe you can start thinking oh maybe i'm ready and and people uh students need to keep a register of these things like they need to have like a tally sheet and in that sheet is start filling out like section part one part two part for every part of the exam how long they take it takes them right um to to do a specific task and i think looking at it objectively you know like they can see in numbers um for example how they are dealing with time if they're dealing well with pressure or if they're producing quality answers in such a short time so emotionally speaking they will never feel ready no yeah listen and this is something i always tell them emotionally speaking if you don't trust your feelings because you will never ever ever feel ready yeah there's there will always be something within you that will tell you you're not ready you're not good enough but if you look at the numbers if you look at the consistency of the results maybe that's why i mean as teachers we notice those things and we know that oh i maybe not not because i'm keeping a record of all the things you're doing but i can see your progress i can see how your reasoning because another thing is um and this is something that i don't know how other students do it but in my classes for example i always tell this my students that learning does not happen when you take a task when you do a task in test mode the learning really happens when you do a task in study mode what does that mean it's that you use the dictionary you for example if it's um a use of english task for example you have a text and then you have the multiple choice you know part one um and then after you do you do the task you try to see why you made the mistakes and you know exactly the reason why for example a is correct and not b c or d yeah so that after work that that thing you do after you finish the task is that's where learning happens yeah because the reasoning the logic that you use is what you're going to recycle not the knowledge itself yeah yes but not the knowledge it's the the reasoning that you the the the train of thought that you follow to get to the right answer it's it's what you need to practice not not the answers itself yeah i couldn't agree more because when i do mock exams with my students kind of the answer is almost irrelevant because you're not going to get the same question in the real exam and it's it's good for your english to learn the new vocabulary maybe as you said in part one that's great but it's not going to help you pass the test it's it's the process you go through and yeah and the reasoning and understanding why the other options were wrong with the listening for example um i never almost never check the the answers with the answers with it with the answer key right i always check the answers with a tape script okay okay and and i do their listening as a reading activity um because by reading the the tape script they will see oh so this was the distractor and this is why i didn't get the answer yeah yeah it's good yeah because i often compare the reading and the listenings and a lot of the exercises are the same you need to find something specific in the text that supports your answer if you can't find that specific word or phrase or sentence in the text that supports your answer it's not correct it's incorrect you need to find another one that's easier to do in the readings you can go back and identify it with the listening obviously it passes you have two opportunities but you can if you don't identify it then but you need to find something specifically that supports your answer um yeah it's interesting um [Music] so yeah you feel you probably will never feel ready as i said one of the um you know you have it's that um i think it's the dunning-kruger um factor when you start learning something when you start a project or you start something new you learn a lot in the first few days or weeks and then you think you know everything yeah oh yes the the yeah the krueger effect stunning dunning-kruger effect yeah exactly the graph where it goes like that so a lot of people get to that point and decide to take the exam and then they're very cocky and confident and they fail because they didn't what happens after that is the more you know about something the less the less confident you are and the more you the more you realize there is to know so you don't know everything so the more time you spend with the i find with my students the more time they spend preparing or getting to know the exams the less confident they are because they realize how big the exam is but at some point yeah you just have to trust your results in the mock exams and just also in my opinion they have students have to accept that they're probably not going to get hundred percent in every part of the exam yeah i mean you have to you have to be realistic i mean about that also getting a 60 that that's the level exactly that's anything over 60 percent is is fantastic it's a purse yeah yeah definitely if you get a 70 you have a strong uh level in that level but yeah if you get more than 80 then you should probably be considering taking the following level yeah yeah yeah yeah so and even i mean i'd even if you get if if you think that part two for example of the reading and use of english the open closed test it's it's often the i think it's one of the most difficult parts many people find it so if you get if you're getting i think it's eight if you're getting three out of eight or four out of eight that can seem like a disaster i'm just i'm not ready for the exam but that's you know 50 in your worst the worst part you know the weakest area of the exam that's actually not bad because you you will compensate in your strongest area so i think it's human nature to to notice and remember our weak points and notice our mistakes more than you know our successes and our strengths definitely it's um it's difficult but yeah trust trust your results i suppose and in angie's case trust your teacher if you're if your teacher says you're ready you're probably ready yeah most probably yes yeah just a couple more questions um svetlana asks about the writing in this case there are various structures for writing an essay which one would frank recommend um in structures in what sense like organizing information i think so i think she must be referring to i i the only thing like the introduction how many paragraphs um i guess i think she's a proficiency student so maybe okay i think i think um it's i i always tell my students to they don't have to reinvent the wheel um sometimes the description the test description will give you the the order in which you can approach the task of course you can always try another way of organizing information and that's fine that's great but honestly that's it's not really that necessary i mean if you just follow but normally that the way in which the information is given the task in the description of the task what you're supposed to be doing yeah um that's more than enough i mean they can follow the same order yeah and of course that you know that every and this is part of the communicative achievement you know the conventions of the task like what like if it's a letter for example you always have to begin with a whether with a greeting with a salutation and you have to um for example say if it's a letter to a friend for example oh thank you for writing it's very nice to hear from and you know things like that i mean you have to follow the conventions of every type of text and and just uh you know normally when we write an essay we follow a structures typical structure if you write a letter we follow a typical structure and something that i always tell my students is never mix uh types of genres you know like the different genres like doing a report as a letter for example yeah that that would be a no no yeah that would be like really you know punishable yeah yeah yeah think of the content and the target reader and all those things and i think i think with an essay in my opinion you need an introduction and a conclusion an introduction paragraph or conclusion paragraph and maybe two or three body paragraphs but in in proficiency for example the essay tends to be more compare contrast basically so yeah do a little bit of research what is the typical structure for a compare compare contrast essay letters to the editor for example which are very typical at proficiency um may require more i don't know argumentative structures you know like if you if you want to for example argue the point of view of the of an editor of a magazine for example what are the steps i mean how do you you know debunk um someone's ideas or arguments and things like that yeah i think that's why the the criteria says uh the criteria say uh follows the conventions of the task and and i think a lot of people don't really get the idea of what conventions of the task is yes yeah that's important to and i mean that's why we tested on different styles of writing it's uh so you have you you have that ability to present your ideas in different different ways you know following different conventions um the next uh okay a quick one uh yolanda has asked she said she'd like to ask both of us which in our opinion is the best book for english grammar it's quite a general one not so much i think it's general i mean if she's asking about best book for english grammar for the cambridge english exams um or just generally the best book for english grammar and what's your opinion on this well i think um i think a grammar if it's for exams it has to be a a grammar book that as an example or uh comes with exam tasks in which those grammar points are applied or are usually tested for example i would probably recommend theirs by advanced grammar by vinnie i think it's the surname vinnie i can't remember i do have a copy of the book but it comes there's there's only two there's advanced grammar in grammar for first and it's basically grammar in peter vinnie i i can't remember exactly um and what i like about it is that it covers the typical grammar of a level for example if it's advanced for example like inversions and cleft sentences and things like that and then in in the practice section many of the tasks many of the exercises are exam tasks and then the students can see how relevant for example uh grammar point is to a certain to a specific task in the exam yeah that's not the orange book is it because i can't remember that there's one no no it's peter vinnie i can't remember exactly it's um i think it's longman no i can't remember the publisher maybe we can look and i'll put it in the description oh yes yes definitely i will let you know yeah because i i i think i mean you have the tip the classic the murphy book the grammar in use which i think yeah yeah they're great and they're great i mean i use them a lot but yeah sometimes i i've realized for example that if i'm explaining grammar point in class like let's say passive voice now i try to think about what sections of the exams usually test passive voice yeah and then for example the keyword transformation for example and then this book i'm telling you comes with keyword transformations with a passive voice yeah yeah i think there's another book it's grammar and vocabulary for advanced and proficiency that's the orange one i think i'm thinking of obviously it's not exclusively grammar but it is they have exercises specifically for the cambridge exam so that one too but i mean really grammar is grammar isn't it i know i think it's good to do the tasks but if you're going to do sample papers and mock tests then you're going to have to practice then you're going to need to know all the grammar anyway but yeah i think as a reference book murphy grammar in use so yeah it's it's it's um it's really good um michael vince okay michael vince advance like it's called advanced language practice by michael vince and it's by macmillan right okay yeah i don't think i'm familiar with that one maybe if i saw the cover but um but yeah okay that's that's a good one so they have specific exam tasks for sort of the the cambridge it it mostly covers the same as as murphy's book um but with the difference that you know you will you will have like dedicated uh tasks that are exam related yeah yeah perfect yeah okay i think i think this may be the last question i have here so and it's a bit well i'll read it i won't say anything my question is how much time do we have to spend reviewing textbooks and how much time do we have to look at other current resources such as articles in newspapers or ted talks 50 50 i like studying everything but the more sometimes the less productivity i think she wants to find the most productive way of studying i'm not sure which exam us sylvia um i think sylvia's c2 uh c2 proficiency but yeah it's i guess it's relevant for everyone i think her question is you know how much time should you cheapest dedicate to studying specifically for the the tasks you know of the exam and how much just generally general english i think i think it uh well if it's going to be for example studying for the exam or prepare for the exam um i think it until she starts getting like consistent results um you know consistent you know with passing a passing score you know 60 yeah um in every task i think that once you know that with confidence i mean you you you have internalized what how to do a task because that's if you if you still struggle for example with um trying to figure out what you have to do in a task i think you still need preparation at least to get acquainted with it because sometimes doing let's say um the reading you know the gapped reading sometimes students don't have a clear strategy so once you have uh established a strategy that works for you that you feel comfortable with and then after that you start getting results i would say that that that's when you should stop you know like doing that a particular task it's very important that students internalize make it a habit you know what strategy is effective for them and strategies they can find a lot i mean of course we have like standard strategies for certain tasks um you know the ones that come with a book um with lots of different course books for exam preparation but i think that when students internalize a strategy that they feel comfortable they know what they're supposed to be doing from the get-go from the beginning of a task i think that that's when they should stop stop practicing yes okay yeah i think it's a it's like training for a marathon you have to peak at the right time too you don't want to sort of do everything and then forget the strategy before you get to the exam but um yeah i always say that you don't want any surprises when you open if you imagine you turn the page up for part six of the reading use of english and you say what's this i don't know how to for example just talk for example to talk about the writing the in the writing section um students will always have the same type of essay meaning that it will be the same structure the same sequence of ideas what what's going to change is the ideas themselves so planning planning for an essay for c1 or for b2 or c2 should always be pretty much the same plan i mean the same structure they don't have to as i said before they don't have to reinvent the wheel exactly and and once they have internalized that structure they just have to think about what ideas to come up with yeah it's almost like and how to put them together yeah yeah it's almost like filling the gaps because you can have the structure and even a lot of the vocabulary a lot of the cohesive devices the linkers you know what you can use and you may even think they don't have to they don't have to come up with a different plan exactly yeah there's only going to be one examiner reading that that writing ever so and if you want to include an example of inversion or the conditional then just in the planning as i always say 15 minutes planning or whatever you want however long you want to spend but think about how you're going to do that but in the preparation and then on the day of the exam you'll have less to to worry about yeah yeah and yeah just almost like a template for the uh for the writing yeah couldn't agree more um okay i don't want to take up too much more of your time but i'm going to ask you one more question about um it's just gone out of my mind it's one that we have we spoke about ah we've spoke about in the last interview but it's come up a few times and i've heard contradictory ideas so i i don't want to if you have just a couple more minutes um before we finish it's about the spelling and punctuation in the writing how important is spelling correct spelling and good punctuation in the writing as far as i think it depends on the level um for example at b2 for example of course it's important but as you move you know up in the scale like if you go to advanced and proficiency of course it's going to become and that the examiners will look at the tiniest of details you know um i i have several uh c2 students who forget punctuation to the point in which it becomes annoying you know like you cannot keep forgetting that after an introductory sentence you have to clause you have to use a comma don't forget that every time you begin with an if clause you have to use a comma and then they keep forgetting those things it may be excusable for b2 learners but for c1 and c2 for example it's it's just it looks bad i mean they have to think about it as somebody in your own language for example if you receive a letter from someone and that letter has faulty grammar or like mistakes with punctuation or spelling what would be your impression of that person yeah so it it's it goes to that i mean of course um does the person get the message across yeah definitely but that a person at a b2 level can actually do that as well yeah even with spelling or or punctuation mistakes they can still get their message across so you want to go a step further so i think it depends on the level and i think at c2 consistently you know forgetting about punctuation or having spelling mistakes i mean there there might be the odd slip i mean it happens to me it happens to all of us yeah you know the odd sleep i have to read things twice and three times and four times of course yeah and still i would notice like oh my god i forgot yeah typo or something yeah yes exactly and it's the same thing it's the same thing and it's it's only a matter of uh you know how bad it makes you look because my understanding is that the spelling and there's no um criteria for this there's no specific as long as it's yeah no there's there is something in the marketing criteria about spelling mistakes and and punctuation but not punctuation but punctuation is part of the coherence for example if you if you uh forget a coma i mean you have a run on sentence so like one sentence is running on top of the other so yeah there's a lack of coherence so yeah um punctuation is an uh an intrinsic part of coherence right exactly yeah yeah um so one thing affects the other so um it does affect your organization it does affect your spelling mistakes would be language but punctuation mistakes would be uh like organization yeah yeah um so you know yeah they're including those areas so perhaps yeah not including a comma once where it's supposed to be may not lose your marks but if it affects the the organization and if it's a consistent thing yeah yeah then yes yeah it it remember students need to see things or mistakes as systematic or non-systematic if it's a systematic mistake it's more like an error you know yeah yeah because in language teaching we have this distinction about error and mistake right you know a mistake is because you know but you still made the mistake it was just like a slip but an error is a systematic um lack of knowledge in something yeah you don't know it intrinsically or you haven't learned it or you don't know it or maybe you've forgotten it yeah yeah very good okay well fantastic frank thank you again for this um well thank you for inviting me no no pleasure and it's extremely valuable for for everyone i think um including myself so thank you for that and i hope to do it again soon i'd love to have you as a as a regular guest um do it every every couple of months or something because these questions are always coming up that um you're the best man to ask for it so thank you again i encourage everyone to check out frank's podcast what you say in english and and check out our other other interview and yeah i hope to speak to you again soon frank thank you very much thank you very much

Channel: To The Point English with Ben.

Views: 1,298

Keywords: Cambridge English exams, how to pass the C1 Advanced Cambridge English exam, C1 Advanced exam tips, CAE exam tips, how to prepare for the C1 Advanced Cambridge English exam, C1 Advanced Cambridge English exam tips, C1 Advanced Cambridge exam tips, Cambridge English exam preparation tips, Cambridge English exam preparation, how to prepare for the Cambridge English exam, how to pass the C1 Advanced exam, C2 Proficiency Cambridge English exam tips, CPE exam tips

Id: y7Bq6XCLICA

Length: 55min 30sec (3330 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021