Cambridge First Certificate (B2) Speaking Exam - What is it? How to PASS it!

hi guys how you doing students regularly worry about their speaking ability when it comes to exams and the cambridge first certificate speaking exam is often the first higher level english exam that they take today i'm going to give you the advice that i give all my students so that you can go into the first certificate speaking exam with confidence right let's do this together so you can pass first certificate speaking [Music] doing any exam is a stressful moment in your life but knowing exactly what's going to happen when you go into the examination room will help you to reduce some of that stress so let's look at what happens during the fce speaking exam you take the speaking part of the exam with another student or very occasionally with two other students but that only happens at the end of a session if there are three students remaining when you go into the room you will see two examiners one is called the interlocutor and that is the person who will speak to you and ask you the questions the other examiner is the assessor and they just listen to you and make notes about the things you say now don't be distracted by the assessor writing things they could be writing about your partner not you and they also write positive comments about you so just ignore them completely and focus only on the interlocutor and your partner the speaking exam is divided into four parts the first one lasts two minutes when there are two students and three minutes when there are three students during this part the examiner will ask you for your name they will then ask you for your mark sheet this is a piece of paper that you get when you arrive at the test center just give it to the interlocutor when they ask for it the interlocutor will then ask you where you are from you do not need to give a long answer to this question it is sufficient to say i am from london if you are from a small village that isn't well known just say i'm from ripley near london no other information is required the rest of part one is a series of individual questions about you your life the things you like and dislike where you live and so on these are easy questions which are designed to get you talking and to make you feel more relaxed and they are easy questions because you know the answer to all of them because they're about you in part two of the exam you are given two photographs on a particular theme that you must compare and also answer a short question which relates to the photographs and that question is also printed on the page with the two photos the task is not about describing what you can see in the photograph so don't do that you need to talk about the similarities and the differences between the two photos and use the printed question to help you do that the question is often about why the people in the photos feel a certain way why they are doing what they are doing that kind of thing these questions encourage you to use a variety of language to speculate so you need to use things such as the modal verbs of deduction present and past use words or expressions that show contrast or similarity when making your comparison things like whereas however on the other hand both as well as and so on and don't forget to answer the question that's on the page not answering the question in part two is a very common mistake but it's on the page so make a point of looking at it after one minute the examiner will stop you and ask your partner a question about your photos then your partner gets two photos to compare and when he or she has finished after one minute the examiner will ask you a question about his or her photos this question asks for you to express your opinion about a certain aspect of one or both photos give your answer and always say why that is your opinion part three is a collaborative task you and your partner are given a piece of paper with a question on it around that question are five written points all connected to that question you have some time to look at what is written on the page and to start thinking about the topic then the interlocutor will invite you to discuss the question with your partner you have about two minutes to discuss all the points with your partner expressing your opinion and listening to what your partner says and commenting on that it's important to talk about each point together before moving on to the next one be careful of the time you only have two minutes so don't get stuck on just one point but at the same time if you don't have time to finish all five that's okay the important thing is to have a conversation with your partner taking turns to speak after two minutes the examiner will stop you and then ask you both another question which will be to make a choice from the options on the page and you have one minute to reach your conclusion together don't anticipate the second question during the two-minute conversation and when you have to make your choice don't jump to the conclusion immediately use the full minute to eliminate the options you don't like and then arrive at your final choice the final part of the speaking test is a three-way discussion the interlocutor will ask you questions based on the same topics as the part 3 collaborative task these questions are generally more abstract in nature and require you to think about your answer on a more general scale and not just on a personal level that said use your own personal experience and what you know to help you answer the questions this is a conversation so you can invite your partner to comment on what you have said you can ask your partner questions so if he or she says something interesting ask them a question about it part 4 is your opportunity to really show off the language you know and anyone can speak in this part if your partner says something that you disagree with tell them that you think it's rubbish but just do it in a nice way sometimes the examiner will ask questions directly to one of you or they might open the questions to both of you be guided by what the examiner says but you can still involve your partner now remember this is a conversation and not an interrogation give full answers to these questions and justify everything you say with why and that is the end of the test so now let's talk about some general tips to help you get through the speaking exam by giving a good confident performance as i said at the beginning exams are stressful your mind is going to be working really fast thinking about what to say and how to say it so before you go into the room you need to calm down as much as possible take some slow deep breaths this will bring down your blood pressure and give more oxygen to your brain talk to your partner about something completely unrelated to the exam talk about something interesting and fun if you don't know your partner and this is the first time that you have met him or her this is a good way to break the ice and to create some sort of rapport with them and this will take away some of the stress for both of you when you go into the examination room and you are relaxed and in a positive frame of mind your language will be more dynamic your intonation will rise and fall much more naturally and this will help your marks for pronunciation also don't stress out if you make a mistake during the exam if you realize immediately that you have made a mistake correct yourself if you realize later don't worry about it it's too late just keep going remember that you don't lose marks during the speaking test you get marks for all the positive things that you do so if you make one or two little mistakes it won't affect your overall score some of my students are often worried about what happens if their partner doesn't talk or if they talk too much the exam is not a competition between you and your partner yet you need to work together with your partner in parts three and four so try to involve your partner in the conversation if they are not talking much and try to join in the conversation if they are talking too much interrupt them in a nice way to say what you want to say in an extreme case if your partner doesn't allow you to talk then the examiner will stop them and invite you to speak and if this happens the other person will not score highly for interactive communication and not you some of my students ask me if it's okay to invent answers well yes of course it is however you should only invent things that are believable and that you know about why do i say this this is an examination of your knowledge of the english language it's not a test of how interesting your life is or what you know about a certain topic if you start inventing things your mind is going to focus on that and less on the language it is obvious to the examiner when you are inventing too much because it affects the way you speak the flow of the language suffers and the level and accuracy of the language go down i always tell my students to use their personal experience or if they feel that they really don't have the experience then they can take it from someone they know take it from their friends take it from their family if you know what you are talking about you can concentrate fully on giving the examiner the best quality english that you can if the examiner asks your question and you really don't have an answer don't worry tell the examiner that you have never thought about that hypothesize about a possible answer and then shut up don't let your sentence um tail off yeah just give a short confident answer and stop talking the examiner will just ask you another question the last thing i'm going to talk to you about today is actually the first part of the exam the personal information questions when i practice this part with my students i almost always get the same answers to all the questions now there are two reasons for that the first is that they all live here where i work and have all had more or less the same life experiences and that's okay we can't change that the second reason is that they all use the same language to express their ideas which revolves around present simple present continuous and the past simple obviously you need the present simple to say my name is and i come from weeks before the exam i get my students to think about their lives i get them to work in pairs to talk about all the different aspects of their daily lives i then asked them how could they improve on what their partner said this gets the students to listen to their partner and to focus on the language that they are using we aren't looking to change the content just how it is expressed what do i mean i'm going to ask you a question then you'll have 20 seconds to answer it are you ready what did you do yesterday evening i imagine you said something like i met some friends for a drink then i came home i had dinner and i watched tv and i went to bed at about 11 o'clock now that is perfect english but it isn't the first certificate language to pass the exam you need to try some more complex grammatical structures and more interesting vocabulary you could say something like this after meeting some friends for a drink at the pub i came home and warmed up some leftovers for dinner then i collapsed on the sofa and put on the news on tv you have to be careful doing this though you must not go to the exam with ready prepared answers that you have memorized because it will be obvious and they might ask you questions that you haven't prepared what you must do is start thinking about how to express things in a better way and start practicing long before the date of your exam and if you can do this you'll create a great first impression and the examiners will love you for it because you'll be different from everyone else like a breath of fresh air in the room and with that we have finished if you are about to sit the first certificate exam i wish you all the very best of luck let me know in the comments how you get on also tell me in the comments if there's anything else you'd like me to make a video about while you are here please take the time to watch one of my other videos and don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already yeah the bottom is just below thank you so much for watching i'll see you in the next one take care bye for now you

Channel: English With Rick

Views: 742

Keywords: b2 first speaking, b2 first speaking advice, pass b2 first speaking, fce speaking, cambridge fce speaking exam, b2 first, fce speaking exam, pass cambridge b2 first speaking, cambridge first certificate speaking exam, cambridge b2 first speaking exam, how to pass cambridge b2 first speaking exam, how to pass cambridge first certificate speaking exam, cambridge fce, b2 speaking, learn english, english exams, B2 exam, B2 FCE

Id: kXAzc1G9nK4

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020