Students studying for the B2 First exam are
usually most nervous about the Use of English parts
of the exam, But actually it's the easiest part...
If you know the grammar! My name is Toby, this is SMASH
english and here is everything you need to know
about part two of the Use of English paper for the B2 First Cambridge exam. For part two of the Use of English paper
of the B2 First Cambridge exam you are given a
text but some of the words in the text are omitted. Oh no! What must we do!?
You must use your big brain to try and understand
what that word is and write it in the space. This is actually super easy
if you think about three things: the meaning, the function and
the form. So what does that mean? What does the sentence mean? Yes
that sounds like a silly question to ask yourself
but often the missing word is part of a phrasal verb.
If you don't know what that phrasal verb should mean
in this context then how do you know which phrasal verb to use?
You don't know! Exactly so the first thing you do
is ask yourself what does this sentence mean? This is for grammatical structures often
the missing word will be a relative pronoun, an article, a preposition, an
auxiliary verb. So think about what the writer is trying
to do with the sentence. Are they wishing? Are
they giving advice? Are they talking about a likely future?
An impossible past? An impossible present? Are they talking about a regret? This
helps you identify the grammar structure that you need.
And with that information you can move on to the next
step... Once you know the meaning of the
sentence and you know the function of the sentence
you can think about the grammatical form that you are trying to complete.
So let's have a practice! Here is our passage about the glorious
Toby! All right! Shut up! I am glorious in my own way! Toby is a hero to many
all across the world. Many nations look to him _____
a source of knowledge and inspiration in times of difficulty.
_____ origins of toby's powers remain unknown. Some say he was born under a full moon.
Others say his mother _____ to whisper magical spells
into his ear every night when he was young.
Various traditions exist to honour Toby. Some perform rituals _____ hanging a picture
of him above their beds. However other more complicated practices
exist. Many _____ off all their lights in their
houses and burn candles whilst singing the
words of SMASH English videos. Animals have also been
used to represent Toby. One woman famously remarked that "if Toby _____ an
animal he would be a lion.". This is because of his great strength and
golden hair. Toby himself is a humble man he usually
goes _____ alone and avoids the company of others.
Indeed if _____ more people were like Toby the world would be a better place. Wow!
What an exciting read! Let's have a look at
our first sentence! "Toby is a hero to many
all across the world. Many nations look to him _____
a source of knowledge and inspiration in times of difficulty".
People are looking to me but what is the function of a source of knowledge
and inspiration? Well we are talking about why they look
to me. What is my function when they look to me.
So we need a word that we use to talk about the form
or function of something. So the function of "a source of knowledge
and inspiration" is to talk about my function... right...
confusing. The word we use to talk about a
function of something is... AS. As. Many students will write
LIKE instead but this is wrong. We do not use LIKE to talk about form or
function. We use LIKE to talk about similarity,
so that's wrong here. If you don't know about all the different ways that we can
use AS for the B2 First Cambridge exam then watch
my video about how to use AS! You have a video
about AS? Yes I do! Watch it! _____ origins of Toby's
powers remain unknown. What type of word
is origins? A noun! You are a genius. And it is a plural noun and it is
countable. That's not very important. Are we talking
about specific origins or are we talking about
all origins in general? No we're talking about
origins that are specific to Toby and Toby's
powers. So if we are talking about a specific
noun (we know which one we are talking about)
we must use a definite article. THE. The origins of Toby's
powers. Articles can be tricky. I know! And that's why I've made a video all
about articles! Yes! Yeah... this will become a pattern
throughout the video. But if there are any answers that you
get wrong, well you can watch a grammar video learn
all about it and say to yourself "I will never make
that mistake again! Thank you, Toby!" No. Thank you
for the view on my video... and the like... and the subscription and maybe the
comment... Bye! Some say he was born under a full moon.
Others say his mother _____ to whisper magical spells into his ear
every night when he was young. So we know Toby's mother did this
every night when he was young. So she does not
do this anymore. What is the function of the sentence then?
To talk about a past routine. Something that was true
in the past and happened regularly but it isn't
true now. So can you think of any grammatical forms
that fulfill that function? USED TO and WOULD. We cannot use both of these.
If you look at our sentence we have the word
TO. Because we have TO we cannot say WOULD TO, so our answer must be
USED TO. Yeah... Oh hi! Do you know the difference between USED
TO and WOULD? You don't!? Wow that's so interesting! Don't worry!
Toby has a great video about it on his SMASH
English youtube channel! The best English teaching channel in the universe!
Bye! Various traditions exist to honour Toby.
Some perform simple rituals _____ hanging a picture of him above their
beds. What is the function? Hanging pictures above their beds
is an example. It's an example of a ritual but we only have one word
and we cannot write FOR EXAMPLE because we only have one word.
Students still sometimes write two words and that's embarrassing.... What
one word can we use in english to introduce an example? LIKE!
Like! It's informal but it is used very commonly
and in the part two of the Use of English paper, the open cloze part,
it is very common to get these annoying AS and LIKE questions, so you must know
the differences between them! I have a video all about LIKE, if you
watch it you will know everything about LIKE! The
Cambridge exam is very expensive! Do you want to waste
your money and fail all because you did not know
the meaning of a word like LIKE? Ridiculous!
Educate yourself, please! However other more complicated practices exist.
Many _____ off all their lights in their houses
and burn candles whilst singing the words of SMASH
English videos. Yes, yes, yes! This is definitely what people all
around the world do! We have our subject which is MANY
then we have a space followed by a preposition
followed by an object THE LIGHTS. Let's think about the meaning. What are
these people doing with their lights? Well they're
burning candles which suggests that it's dark!
What do you do with your lights to make the room
dark? And can you think of a phrasal verb that means to do this? TURN
OFF! Here TURN means to stop the flow of
electricity to a device. Yeah... Do you know all the meanings of
turn off? Do you know all the phrasal verbs with
turn!? Of course you don't! So video... link in the
description! Turn! Great! Animals have also been used
to represent Toby. One woman famously remarked that
if Toby _____ an animal he would be a lion this is because of his great strength
and golden hair. There are two possible answers here. We
have two clauses and in the beginning of the
first clause we have IF. This means this is a conditional
structure but which one? In the second clause the
result clause, the main clause, we have WOULD
followed by an infinitive. So which conditional
requires WOULD followed by an infinitive? Let's think about the function. Are we
talking about something that's imaginary in the future?
Something that's likely in the future? Something that's imaginary in the past?
Or maybe an impossible present... So the function is talking about an
impossible present. The form is with WOULD plus an infinitive
so we know that we must use the second conditional! Let's think about the
form of the second conditional then! We need
IF plus PAST SIMPLE in the first clause. So "if
Toby _____ an animal". We need the verb BE in the past simple. If TOBY was an animal.
For the second conditional we can also use the subjunctive tense!
If Toby WERE an animal. In general it is better to use WERE than WAS.
But for part two of the Use of English, the open cloze part of the B2 First
Cambridge exam you can use WAS or WERE... doesn't matter...
doesn't matter. Video about the second conditional? You
want to watch one? Link in the description! Toby himself is
a humble man, he usually goes _____ alone and avoids the
company of others. Where does Toby go? Does he go to
a specific place? Or does he go places in general?
I cannot see a specific place here, so I think the meaning of this sentence is
more general. When Toby goes _____ Where? Where is he going? I don't know! Can you
think of a phrasal verb with go that means to just go
to places in general? GO OUT. Yeah, go OUT. Very good. Link...
phrasal verbs with GO... Go! That's good actually! Go!
Phrasal verbs with GO, go! Definitely will use that
in this video... yes... Indeed if _____ more people were like Toby the world
would be a better place. Now this one's a little
bit more confusing. It looks like a second conditional right?
We're looking at the form and we can see all of the components of
a second conditional. We have IF plus the past simple. We have
WOULD plus an infinitive but we know it's not the
second conditional because we have a space between IF and
MORE. Oh yeah! Good point! So let's stop looking at the form
and let's look at the function. What is this person doing here?
Are they just describing an imaginary present?
Well I don't think they are because they are saying
the world would be a BETTER place! To me it sounds like they are
complaining about the fact that more people are not
like Toby in this world. So this person is expressing a wish or a
desire about the present. So we know the
function now let's think about forms that can
express this function: expressing wishes and
desires about the present. I WISH more people were like Toby the
world would be a better place. But we cannot use I WISH because we have
IF. So can you think of another expression
that has this function that does not need wish and begins with
if? IF ONLY! If only more people were like
Toby the world would be a better place. And what a fantastic
sentence to finish this video on! But wait, Toby!
I don't know how to use I WISH and IF ONLY!
Don't you worry! I have a video on it! Click the link in the description!
So remember for part two of the Use of English paper of the B2 First Cambridge
exam think about three things every time you
read a sentence! What does it mean? What is the function?
And what is the form? If you do this, if you approach it logically, you will be
fine! But we will make lots more videos about
part two of the Use of English exam because you can never have too much
practice and we both love practice, don't we!? And with
that we are finished! 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. you
