How to prepare for and pass the Cambridge CPE exam

so today i'm going to speak with my lovely student sylvia um hello sylvia hi sarah how are you doing today i'm doing all right it's lovely to be talking to you it's lovely talking with ut and where are you from i'm from italy yeah i'm from verona and you have just passed which exam the cpe yes how do you feel with that result oh very proud of myself i have to say i'm very happy i'm still on cloud nine at the moment good you should be so we're going to have a chat about preparing for cpe and about taking the exam and also a little bit about motivation levels because cpe is super tough so how long did you spend preparing for cpe well um 15 to 16 months and i have to say yeah i started my preparation when the pandemic spread so in february 2020 and i'm still learning something even though plastics are at the beginning of july june beginning and you you were i told you that you were already at c2 as we started preparing and i guess the question is sometimes people are under the level for the exam but they want to prepare for the exam but it took you that time starting from c2 to get ready for the cpe exam yes yes of course as if you want to pass the exam with such a score at b you need to be preparing uh for each task you need to know the exam as the back of your hand yeah so yeah this is yeah it took 15 months for this reason as i needed to get used to each single task get familiar to them it's it's a big exam really it is it is not only is it challenging but it is also grueling sarah so yeah yeah it is tiring at times how how much time are you studying for every week roughly do you think roughly oh eight to ten hours wow yeah yeah well it's easy to do the math i have to say well consider 40 to 50 minutes every day just extensive listening to podcasts while commuting driving my car doing the rna having breakfast and then reading something like 20 minutes every day and having our weekly lesson on saturdays and then consider that my weekends were all devoted to my preparations so i spent something like two to three hours every weekend so yeah in total ten hours on average per week and it's interesting that you're including extensive listening and extensive reading in that yeah do you feel that those extensive skills were really helpful for you essential vital for my preparation as you have to know lots of different words collocations verb phrases and all this stuff and the best thing is be immersed you know and get familiar to any kind of topic yeah and this is why you know yeah listen a lot write a lot read a lot if you want to pass such a intense exam that's cool because my next question was what what's your top tip for preparing cpe that's a great question i have to say i have let's say three main suggestions sarah one is psychological and it is really important is vital is spread the word when you decide when you decide to embark on this kind of journey spread the word let your friends and family know what you are about to start because as i told you the exam is challenging it's time consuming the preparation is grueling so you are going to need all the support and help and the love of your friends and family so first of all just let people know what you are about to do and secondly go and find a skillful a very well prepared a trained teacher you know it is of paramount importance this is really essential as teachers they help you through each part of the exam they give you their tips sarah you helped me a lot with strategy a lot and then you gave me feedback as a student you always need to get feedback and know your weaknesses and your strengths and how to do this with a very good and prepared teacher trained teacher so i have someone to suggest you if you like one for other students yeah no really really this is my top tip and then obviously surround yourself so try to create an english bubble all around yourself surround yourself with english um listen a lot watch tv shows um read a lot try to speak on a regular basis with other peers and i was so lucky i met such good people out there and we practiced a lot and to me it was really essential these are yeah i mean tips practice practicing without a teacher with a teacher as well well with the teacher is great as you need to know you know your weaknesses and where you are very good at and you need to to tackle each task okay and do each exercise as cambridge asks you to do and then go and practice with other peers as you have a lot to learn uh just practicing with other people of course non-native people doesn't matter it doesn't matter you just need other people to practice with so that you can practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice as as much as possible absolutely absolutely so if we move on to talking about the actual exam um did you take cpe the computer version or the paper yeah i took the computer-based version of the exam as at that time in may uh the school only offered the c um computer-based versions and you you know i prepared on paper okay i used to spend most of my time writing my essays by hand and all of a sudden i had to prepare for the computer-based exam and i did it by using the mock tests which are available on cambridge website and i suggest anyone to do the computer base that is so simple um it is possible even to paste and you know highlight things this was my main concern just before taking the computer-based exam having the possibility to highlight um my essay the article or even the you know the listening exercises you have to highlight things if you want if you want to remember them so i did it yeah i highly recommend uh taking the computer based version rather than the paper version as the paper version might be time consuming especially if you are writing the essay that's really interesting because i remember when we first started talking about this and you you you were quite resistant yeah super resistance when they say okay there's the only the only opportunity for you is to do the computer-based exam otherwise you have to wait until august or september i don't know okay i thought to myself okay be brave try it anyway you can try it again if you failed it yeah i think you did say that at some point and i thought i don't think she's going to fail so on the actual day itself it's it's a it's a very very long day it's a very long exam what for you was the most difficult or challenging part of that day well before taking the exam i thought the writing okay the writing part as writing the essays something difficult and challenging it takes time you have to limit yourself you have to time yourself but the day of the exam the writing went very well you know it but the listening was quite difficult sarah for two main reasons well uh we weren't the only students taking the exam at that day there were lots of young students yeah committed in their spanish exams so it was a little bit noisy um i didn't get distracted by the noise i have to say but i was a little bit concerned that they might have affected my understanding in a way it didn't happen uh well this is a good thing but then the questions were different from the question i was used to uh during my cpe preparation questions were slightly psychological um the two you know there are at some point there are four different answers and two of them were so similar and i got a little bit uh nervous at that time at that point but then yeah this was the most challenging task for me now to be honest with you yeah i think cp listening is really tough yeah and it comes after the writing it comes after the reading so um by 12 o'clock you are starving and you are supposed to uh to have this 40 minute long exam so yeah yeah it's a long long run and before we started making this video you were we were chatting and you told me a little bit about your speaking partner yeah so obviously for a lot of people who take these cambridge exams we you know you have no control over who your partner is going to be and you meet them on the day and you're like oh yeah okay let's go thing together um how how was that me working with someone that you'd never met before oh it was a probably there were less pressure on me as i didn't have to demonstrate anything to him as we didn't know each other before the exam but the very beginning it was a little bit weird as my partner was a little bit shy and introvert and nervous and rigid but then everything went well i believe um when we started working together and you know doing this kind of ping-pong again it went well but the very beginning he was so nervous um i wasn't able to talk to him before the exam as he didn't want to speak with me probably because he was too nervous he was revising uh in his hands so yeah i respected him of course it was his choice and yeah yeah but it went well yeah i believe it is extremely important to be relaxed okay before entering the exam as the examiners are you know they know what you are going to to feel sad don't be don't be concerned about this and they're usually very nice they are indeed they are yeah they kept smiling under their face mask yeah yeah yeah yeah you can you can you can see it you can see it from from the eyes yeah eyes yeah yeah yeah oh that's good so finally let's talk a little bit about like motivation and why why why why did you do this to yourself no no i didn't have to and you know what um i had my master's degree 12 years ago okay and in order to pass my master degree i had to certificate my english c2 so i have a c2 level of english of course but then at some point probably when the pandemic spread i realized i wanted something more i wanted some i want to at that time i wanted to challenge my english as my i don't know i wasn't that fluent i used to be very fluent in the past i have to say and then for some reason um this kind of fluency dropped a bit oh this is my probably this is just my feeling you know my impression of my language i don't know this is when i decided to take the cpe exam i believe when you have a goal to achieve okay your motivation rises accordingly this is why i decided definitely and i've seen that quite often with students who have decided to work for an exam when they don't actually have to and it's like rocket fuel for that student yeah right yeah i've got to do all this stuff so do you feel that your english has changed as a result of cpe yeah yeah yeah for sure i mean especially in the writing i'm aware of my level of writing now i know how to tackle an essay i know how to write an article a blog article now i'm i'm more confident with this strange structure of the language you know inversion conditionals with this stuff and i like it i have to say that i really like writing now and it is something that i improved during the preparation probably yeah yeah and i think i think it's really important to bear that in mind that that when when we work for an exam yeah it's lovely to get the exam and it's lovely to pass and that's that's great but actually what's at least as important is all the stuff that you learn and develop on the way to passing that exam of course of course because that's what you take with you afterwards yes all that knowledge and all that skill and all that yeah everything that you've learned through doing cpe yeah it is so complete and so complex and yeah it's fantastic and you know what the c2 i took at the exam [Music] it was nowhere near as complex and as complete as it was the cpe with cambridge school i don't know why but the kind of c2 you have at exam at the university is different in some ways yeah it is a different certification you have a very different level i believe it is lower than the one you have to develop in order to pass cpe bank cambridge are really good at designing exams yeah yeah yeah they're really good yeah find out when you do your teacher training water preparation water training i highly suggest it's so good so oh so challenging so so so rewarding in a way so rewarding and i enjoyed um turning the pages of the three books i bought i bought three books to prepare this exam and they are all so good really so useful i'm still reading them can you tell yeah how how did you maintain your energy and motivation through all of those 15 16 months yeah as i told you the very beginning of the support of my boyfriend in the first place the support of my teacher and of my friends yeah this was my main motivation you know whenever you spread the word you know that there are out there many people who are constantly asking you how is your preparation when are you supposed to have your exam and this is probably the fuel for your operation in general and then having a goal my goal is to become a full-time teacher you know yeah in the future i mean yeah so business this counts a lot cool sylvia thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on cpc thank you very much for having me here congratulations again thank you thank you

Channel: Think Positive English

Views: 648

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Id: e-v8bPeR30k

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021