SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS EXPLAIN HOW TO PASS THE C2 PROFICIENCY CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH EXAM || CPE EXAM TIPS

to the pointers thank you for joining me again this is a very special video um but it's also a very long video as you'll see um but i do recommend that you watch the whole interview because it's full of extremely useful tips and information and advice on how to pass the c2 proficiency cambridge english exam so you may not be able to watch the whole video in one go but you can watch it over over a few days and come back to it and also i'll put the timestamps related to each question that i ask in the description so you can go directly to the the questions that interest you most but as i said i think you should watch the whole video it's very useful um so thank you again to marie sylvia michael and jeroen very generous with their time and without further ado let's watch the interview okay so let's do this um i have a very special treat for all the viewers at home today because i have not one not two not three but four successful c2 proficiency cambridge english exam students that's cpe students who have very kindly agreed to share their experiences and their knowledge and their tips um of the exam um and i should mention the all these guys are from the telegram group that we have which is great for for people to to get to share share tips with each other but i have to say i'm particularly grateful to these guys because they passed the proficiency and they continued in the group just to help out other people and then they agreed to do this this video this interview so i'm really really grateful to all of you thank you for doing this um i think really what i want from this is to get the the students perspective because i can give my perspective as a teacher you know i've helped many people prepare for the exams um and i also interviewed frank the exam expert but now i think this will it's a really great opportunity to get the students perspective on you know how to prepare you know how to pass the exam because you are all successful proficiency students so i just wanted to start just with um some introductions so just like you just tell me um who you are where you're from and when did you take the exam so gerund perhaps you could start please yeah sure um my name is jeroen and i live in amsterdam in the netherlands i took the exam in um what was it again i have to look up the date actually uh in may i took the exam in may and got the results about ten days later i think or two weeks later right uh yeah i was very happy to pass and yeah that's it i took it in amsterdam and it wasn't like i'm doing a cambridge exam i'd never it was your first time okay interesting yeah and i guess it was a computer-based exam if you got the results so quickly yeah yeah okay and mari what about you yeah um i'm mary and i am from spain and i took the test on the 10th of july i also took the computer-based and i got my results i think it was like three weeks later or something like that it was pretty quick yeah yeah yeah and was it this your first cambridge exam or had you taken the no it's not the first one technically i also took this new cambridge test called lingua skill um because i needed to prove my level of english like quickly kind of thing so i took it but i didn't really prepare for it it's a multi-level test and so they just basically um tell you your level so i got c1 which is the it was the uh the highest okay right yeah i've i don't know much about that lingual skill but it's another cambridge exam but it's yeah it's new it's pretty pretty recent yeah yeah i need to need to find out more about that um what about you sylvia um my name is silvia bisley and i'm 23 years old and i'm from italy and i start the exam in june and i had taken another cambridge exam before i took the b2 it was almost five years ago wow five years ago i took the b2 exam and i was four points away from the c1 and the the speaking part dragged me down but yeah but it was the the p2 and that's it and so that you decided to skip the c1 advanced and go straight for proficiency and that was a good decision obviously yeah okay thank you michael um yeah my name is michael i also took the exam in early july to about a month ago um yeah i'm from austria by the way uh i almost forgot it was my first cambridge exam okay right thank you my next question i think it's an important question because well i think i'll just ask it and you can i think your answers will will explain why it's important i think but the question is why did you decide to take the the proficiency exam marie let's start with you this time all right um well it's it's hard to say really there is there are a lot of reasons um in my like in my case it was because i did something very related to english at uni and it was just a very good certificate to have in terms of finding a job teaching english for example here in in spain or even if if if i wanted which might happen if i wanted to go to a british university for a masters or something they ask you to have either the ielts or the c2 proficiency so it was just a good certificate to have in my in my case so that's why and also a personal channel the challenge right so of course that was also recent yeah i think that's why i asked because it's i think it's important to have a clear reason a clear why as they say for taking the exam to to be able to motivate yourself for however long you need to pass the exam so yeah obviously you had a few different reasons i think you told me before that you you lived in in england didn't you yeah where did you live and for how long um i lived in birmingham for about nine months um and so yeah that was just it just helped a lot right yeah well i can hear in nine months you picked up the the brummie accent a little so it's nice it's a nice accent it's a bit very peaky blinders um and sylvia why did you take the exam i took it for the same reason as married but also because the pandemic of course took its toll on my studying career and i had to take a year of university and since since i had a lot of time of sort of free time on my hand i decided why not why not take the situ level that is the most difficult one and the most requested one i think and have it in my curriculum and because of course it adds value to my career to my curriculum and of course i am studying languages in uni and i thought it was the last step to take for my english career right yeah it's definitely i think well definitely i think it's the most prestigious exam obviously the highest level you can attain and i think compared to the other exams it's the most respected and prestigious so once you've got that yeah it's it's a huge advantage for many for many reasons but um yeah so michael what about you um yeah for for similar reasons um personal reasons a challenge like maurice the bad also kind of to bolster my cv a little bit um because i find it kind of hard to assess yourself so i figured why not make it official and get a certificate for it okay right and jeroen similar yes but it kind of it fell into my lap in the sense that um i wasn't really planning on doing the exam i never even heard of it but at the time i was working in a in a primary school here in amsterdam which happens to be bilingual so the pupils are taught in both dutch and in english so every couple of months a couple of teachers take um an english test the cambridge exam test and well i was lucky enough that there was a spot still open or the spot came available as i was just starting there and the head of the school offered me that that spot and then i thought well actually this this would be great uh maybe for my career because i also teach dutch to expats so i use english a lot when i'm teaching right um so that's that's always good um but yeah definitely also to challenge myself i always had the i the impression that my english is at a reasonable level but i thought this was a great opportunity to yeah really put a put a number on it myself and uh yeah see where i'm where i'm at actually yeah i think that's interesting because there's a debate and i'm not sure where i stand on whether it's a good idea to to study for and take exams in general but english exams in particular whether it really helps your general you know development or progress in in the la you know in the learning process um and i think yeah whatever add something to that sure yeah yeah that's actually what's what struck me when i was first starting so i did an exam training was like a 15-week course like we had an hour and a half of lessons uh every week yeah and it struck me that it's actually not so much of learning english of course you learn english but i think my english maybe increased maybe two percent or something yeah it was mainly really training for the exam it's really getting used to uh how the exam works how it is scored the the particularities of how to write an essay and all those things which i'm sure some of which we will cover yeah in the conversation but um so i do feel i learned a bit but not as much as i as i expected in the beginning it's really an exam it was really an exam training for me yeah well that's the thing yeah i mean the big question is whether your time would have been better spent just studying english or improving your english in general or whether because there's one thing studying for an exam to get the certificate and for whatever reasons as you've spoken about and another thing is is whether it really improves your level or if it could in some cases interrupt your your learning process but different people some people need the motivation that it can provide but um and and it's a fact it's a huge benefit if you can get the certificate so whether it's good for your english learning or not it's a reality that we need or some people need to to have this certification um and it helps it's nice to have it too as a few of you said it's nice to to prove to yourself your level and just to check it off your list so some a lot of the questions i have for today are from other members of the telegram group so other proficiency students who are still in the preparation stages um so the next question i have is from elisa um and she asked this it's a very common question and it's not that easy to answer i don't think but let's see so how long how long did it take you to prepare for the exam um well sylvia let's start with you this time well i i'd say for five months more or less because i wasn't like sweating blood every day but i did practice every day because i wanted to get as concert as possible like maybe one day just listening one other day just practicing some english grammar maybe but it was like on and off five months on and off not every day every single day and it was really stressful at the beginning because i was failing everything since it is it's a really high level exam it's so difficult that you are not prepared enough to take it but i think everyone is still learning and i'm still learning even if i i took it and [Music] i don't really know for me it was five months but maybe for other people could be two months or three years yeah that's a really easy question to to answer it's an impossible question to answer really i mean everybody is different and well i'll let you all answer and i i'll give my my thoughts on that in a moment but yeah thank you silvia and michael what about you um to be honest i i only prepared for about two weeks because i kind of uh decided to do this exam on a whim basically uh um i kind of got this idea in my head and then i checked the exam dates and basically the deadline for application was like in two days so yeah i i just applied and then studied for like two weeks um like jeroen said uh mostly to get to know the the procedure of the exam and yeah yeah well it worked for you just two weeks preparation i wouldn't recommend that for everybody no it was yeah it was stressful on and of course i i would have liked a little more preparation time but yeah it worked out in the end so yeah i mean and you mentioned i mean it's i and jerome mentioned before it's a lot about getting to know the exam as i've said many times in my videos it's you may have the the the level but really the preparation is just getting to know the exam the format and exactly what the what cambridge want from you what they want you to do so so yeah well very very well done for passing with only two weeks preparation but um that's very good and jeroen what about you so i took a course which took also about four months and was a weekly uh weekly class i think i spent probably three hours total every week maybe including homework um but like i said it was mainly exam prep uh it was actually a course that was preparing me for the c1 exam but at the last moment a bit like michael i i decided well i think my level is actually a bit higher than what i'm preparing for because i'd been doing some sample tests online engaging my scores so i felt reasonably confident that i could also do c2 so at the last minute i switched like a week before the exam and then i spent the week which was pretty intensive to uh get to know all the differences between the c1 and the c2 exam so a lot of practice tests and a lot of um yeah just finding out how the exam works as opposed to the the other one yeah so my answer would be four months but then again i also feel like you know i've been learning english for my entire life um and i guess that is what would get you to to a certain level um yeah just being exposed to english for a certain amount of time uh that determines your level and then you just need a couple of weeks or months to to get used to how the exam works that that's how it functions in my mind yeah that that's something i was going to say of course you've been preparing all your lives or since your first first english class your first exposure to english because that's how you get a proficiency level you can't study for four months or two weeks or whatever and get to a proficiency level you need the level first and then focus on preparing for the exam because as i've said in other videos that many people have an advanced level but don't pass the cambridge advanced many people have a proficiency level but don't pass the proficiency because they don't understand the exam they don't know the format so you need both things you need the level and the understanding of the exam so and yeah to get to a proficiency level you need years and years and years and ahmadi what about you yeah so um well the idea of um taking this test was kicking around i would say like probably two years ago but it wasn't until last year that i actually decided that i wanted to take it but then i got two jobs and so i was i was juggling too many things at the same time so i've been also just like sylvia very on and off so for example in september i tried to get a tutor but then in october i start but then in november i started preparing a c1 student myself and so i was like getting that input kind of thing so it's weird it's it's hard to say like i don't know how much time actually took me to prepare for the test but it i didn't sign up for the test until i think it was like a month a month before the test so it was very very uh time was very tight indeed yeah yeah a bit last minute but but again you did it so hold on but i think that's interesting thing you said there that you you were teaching or you were helping somebody else prepare for the cambridge examination and that was my way of studying as well it is weird no it's probably one of the best ways that's how you really get to know the exam is by what anything you really learn something by teaching it because you need you need to understand it in order to teach it so that's good yeah i think that's very interesting what you've all said and i think of course it how long it takes to prepare for the exam depends on so many things it depends on your starting level it depends on how much time you can dedicate i mean sylvia you said you were doing something every day and that's often that's necessary i mean if you can only do like two days a week it's going to take you a lot longer to prepare and if you if you start with a lower level it's so it's very difficult to to put a you know real time on it but um but yeah you'll it's very interesting because you've all have very different um experiences with that um the next question uh it's another quite common question it's just um where to where to start i i did make a video on this um but again that's from the teachers my perspective and i'd like to it will be very interesting to get the students perspective but where do you start i mean it's quite a big exam what what do you do what's the first first step michael let's start with you this time um yeah i can recommend uh doing uh something like some there are official sample exams on the official cambridge english website and this kind of helps you to assess yourself gauge your level kinda you can see hey are they way out of my league or are they not that hard for me so yeah that would be a first point to start kind of yeah um then yeah like we mentioned previously uh really familiarize yourself with the whole procedure of the exam um there are a lot of youtube videos of course the spin channel um great resource um yeah there are also other channels but um there are not any there are no there are no other channels go on if you if you do if you can recommend any other channels that's fine i won't be uh i won't be angry but um maybe i i can touch on this a little later when we come to specific tips um but yeah like i said uh youtube videos and also the telegram group like ben mentioned and yeah that's about it the first steps good good tip yeah i definitely agree with the sample papers i think that's [Music] the best way to get to know the exams and then you can at the end also of your preparation i recommend you start and end your preparation with the sample exams i think but yeah we're talking about where to start and jeroen well do you have any tips on where to start here well similar tips really um i i think mock exams were really great um if i had to do it all over again i would probably start with mock exams but i happened to be enrolled in a course so that was my first encounter with how the exams work yeah um so i i could definitely recommend taking a course it it helped me but i don't think it's it's super necessary i think you can prepare on your own and then i think mock tests are the way to go and really make sure that you have an answer key so you can really um see what scores you would have gotten and see where your weak points are yeah to work on that because i think no one is is perfect in every uh part of the exam um and then you can uh improve those perfect yeah i agree completely maddie um sorry what was the question where did you start oh yeah right um yeah sorry um i would say um getting to know your level is very important because of course you know you get high c ones lower c ones intermediate c ones if that makes sense um so it's very important to know where you are um and so that's the first thing that i did myself just get to know and of course you can do that by taking a mog exam like they said um and then of course i would personally i would follow a book like i would work uh through a book just because all the information is gathered um and so you don't need to worry kind of thing um it's just more like tidy and more organized yeah exactly right yeah that's actually that's actually a good point that marie mentioned um there are also a couple of um tests designed specifically to gauge your level which are usually pretty short tests like 25 questions and there are a couple of ones that you can find online and i found them to be pretty accurate i mean all of them told me that i was a c2 level and it turned out that that was also the exam that was right for me um so i think that's a pretty good first indicator so maybe yeah that should be the first thing that you do if you start all by yourself good yeah yeah yeah can i can i chime in here real quick um yeah like like your room said um and in my case um the my center also offered a free assessment test and also kind of free counseling so i was able to talk to them for like 30 minutes and yeah it was completely free so maybe um your center offers this as well it's worth a try yeah i guess that's a big doubt that people have when they're choosing an exam is you know do i have that level that it's very you can have an idea of your your own level but um that's why yeah it's good to do the sample test but if you can if you can get a level test and a you know professional can tell you yes go for the c2 or no maybe it's best to see one for you it's um yeah good advice what about you sylvia where would you say i i wouldn't say i would say the same so yes find your english level before starting to work on whatever exam you are taking of course but for example i'd say to find a group to find someone you can study with you can practice with so you can be motivated and motivate others because by myself i wasn't going anywhere i was like okay i wrote this now what it's not you are there and if you are with someone else even if you don't know them if you don't know them i think it's better because you can start knowing each other and start working on your exam without being i don't know without being stressed about what they are going to think about me yeah but yes i i would have said the same about the about assessed your level but of course find someone find a group where you can talk freely in english and not don't be afraid of taking the first step because taking the first step is speaking in english it's not like it's not difficult but i can understand that it's a big obstacle to say yeah i want to do this exam now what what is the next step to do this yeah yeah so yeah so to find other people other like-minded people yeah well that's why i love this telegram group um i think now we have over 600 members so you can find people in your in your city or town your neighborhood or friends at school but you know we have people from all over the world in the telegram group and people are organizing their own study groups speaking also there's a one of the members has started a discord server recently which i don't really understand because i'm too old but i know it's popular with with kids but um so i'll put i'll put the link to both the telegram group and the discord server in the description to this video but so that yeah that's a great opportunity for people i i always recommend to find a study partner but yeah find a study group even better more through what was the hardest part of the exam for you um let's start i think we're back to you for the start um for me it was the writing part because in practice i could never get under the time limit i would write great essays and stuff and my teacher would mark them and compliment me on my language and say it was really uh by the book and everything which was of course nice to know but i also knew that it took me like twice as long uh to finish um as um as you're allowed so it really was a struggle to get under the time limit right so that was what uh i spent most of my what last couple of weeks on basically to get under the time limit right and um yeah finally in the exam i'm it was probably the first time that i actually managed to write two pieces of writing uh in uh an hour and a half um so it paid off but it was definitely uh hard work for me yeah right so you you it's like training for a marathon no you peaked just just at the right moment so you got it right on the day but yeah well let's talk about that a bit more because my next question is about tips for each part and we can do this with the writing from you now but so what did you do how did you was it just practicing lots of lots of sample exams or did you did you prepare a yeah well real quickly like i said first i was preparing for the c1 level and there the exam is a little bit different you have two uh writing uh parts the first one is always an essay and the second one is a choice of i think four different ones yeah um so i think you have to i think there are five options total but you only have to practice really four to be on the safe side because in the second part you get a choice of i think two of two or three i think it's three you get a choice of three yeah a choice yeah so i i forget the exact numbers but you don't have to practice all of them uh and still be fully prepared so you you you can always choose something that you've prepared for um um but all that also kind of goes for the for the c2 exam i think you just have to be familiar with all the the different options i actually found that the c2 exam is a little bit easier at least the way i prepared it because there's also an essay which has certain a certain structure that you can just learn and the second part one of the options is that you can read a book or one one of two books yeah and they're even so um uh how do you say lenient that you can also or you're also allowed to just watch the movie uh so i chose one of those and i watched the movie and an analysis and the director's commentary and i took some notes myself so i already had a lot of um knowledge in my head about that book it was the book about a boy so my idea was i'm going to finish the essay in like 45 minutes and then i'm going to do the the second part and um i'm going to check i'm going to see what all the options are maybe there is also an option to write a review of my favorite movie and i can always do that yeah at least i have a backup plan i have the option to write everything i know about um about a boy in this case yeah um so i felt really really good going in that i had knowledge of what i was going to write about for the second part so that really helped and another tip that i would give is get your practice writings checked or corrected by a professional uh reviewer um i was lucky enough to have a course so my my teacher would uh would give me notes every week by the way shout out to uh shane patrick because he was very good teacher he teaches in amsterdam and he gave me very good feedback and also in the last week i sent an essay to you ben to get some to get some notes um and that that really helped me and why do i emphasize that it should be a professional reviewer well i think it's of course also nice to to give it to your peers or the person you're practicing with and they are going to point out mistakes or things that just sound funny um but i think it's really important that someone really points out exactly what's wrong with it uh someone who doesn't miss anything and um really knows the the the yeah the rules behind it um i think that was super useful for me to um to have uh corrections at a very high level right yeah that's good just before we move on did you or has it have any of you used the um write and improve um website from cambridge have you have you heard of that i have i haven't well i've i haven't used it but i've heard of it and people really like it don't know yeah i've heard mixed mixed reviews some people like it uh um some people say it's not very it's not perfect but i think it's i think it's kind of like artificial intelligence or something you get immediate feedback so it can't be a real teacher sitting there reading very quickly so yeah i don't know i just wondered if if you had any experience but no um yeah thanks for that jerome very interesting uh well before yeah before we move on from the writing or maybe other more of you are going to speak about the writing but did any of did did any of you apart from jiren do the set test set text part yeah michael you said you did um yeah i also read about a boy i can highly recommend it because it's kind of a contingency plan so to speak because then you know there's at least one topic you are knowledgeable in because there are often like weird topics for example like um write a report on some volunteer work you did and like if you have never done it you you had to you have to make something up which is kind of hard it's it's much more uh chainwin if you would talk about your own experience or like i said something you know something about like the the set text so yeah i can highly recommend that too yeah it's interesting yeah marie and sylvia did you did you read the set text or as jerome says watch the film you don't have to necessarily read it yeah um i didn't personally but i think it's a good idea just because at least here i find that nobody like really does them kind of thing like nobody picks the um the set text just because i guess it can be seen as a waste of time because you know you have a lot going on you have a lot to study a lot to um to brush up on and so why would you if i don't know if that makes sense does it make sense like yeah yeah yeah it makes sense yeah i think it makes sense i understand but but yeah i think in the end that extra effort yeah it pays off gives you more yeah in the exam and you feel maybe less less nervous in the writing part because you as michael and jeroen said have that that guaranteed sort of a contingency plan so sylvia you didn't do the set text either no no no i didn't do i didn't do them because i i don't really know why but i thought it was a waste of time like marie said but not is in a bad way but i wanted to do the other things maybe to challenge myself more but listening to their reasoning i think i should have done that just to be sure just to be okay i don't know what to write about these three tasks yeah i read the book i watched the film whatever okay i can write about this book i can write about this film this movie i don't know but maybe yeah maybe i should have just i should have done it yes now now that i listened to them because i i didn't even thought about doing them yeah taking the the settings yeah it wasn't an option for me yeah just because time was so tight so i was just yeah you know i'm just going to practice like reading and use of english and listening um and i kind of like neglected writing a little bit that was one of my um mistakes as well all right well you you'll pass yeah michael sorry um yeah about about the time investment um of course if you read the book it's um quite some investment but for about a boy specifically there's uh some kind of uh abridged audio book which is like two and a half hours so it's not that much time investment if you if you listen to this audiobook um yeah the what what you get out of it in my opinion is a lot because like we mentioned you're all kind of um safe because you know one topic already yeah yeah good yeah i mean i guess you don't need i don't want to give bad advice so um jeroen and michael as you did but you don't need to have a very deep understanding of the book you don't need to give a deep i mean if they accept you know the film i guess it's not like you have to take notes on each page it's it's just a short text that you need to write so it's you know quite i mean is that is that right michael and jerome do you think it's it's so you know with the summary or the film that's enough um well yeah for me it worked um i didn't listen to an abridged version but i did watch the movie which is about an hour and a half two hours i think then i also watched it with the director's commentary just to have a little bit more background and i watched the youtube video of about 10 or 20 minutes which was quite analytical kind of a summary of the book but also an analysis so that happened to be available for for this one and um because i've been doing some some mock tests i um uh noticed that um it helps if you really understand the characters in a book because usually they will ask something about or that that was at least my experience uh they will ask to write something about how the characters interact or how they differ from each other about their personality so i paid specific attention to that made sure that i had in my head how i would describe them if that question would come up um and then i think you already have a pretty good basis you then you know the plot and you know uh you have a couple of things to say about their personalities um well then already just by describing them you have so much vocabulary and then it's just a matter of fitting it into the correct um structure i mean sometimes you need to write an article which is a bit more open sometimes it's really a review i think um but um yeah just uh just having access to the vocabulary because you thought of it you gave it some thought ahead of time uh really helps and yeah it doesn't really take uh that much time i think well and you you can enjoy it too i mean you read a book it's a night i i read that book many many years ago and it's it's a nice book to read so it's fun i watched the movie on date night so there was a win right well there you go yeah killing two birds with one stone yeah or maybe three yeah but um but yeah some very good advice there um so we got back to the original question which is the the hardest part of the exam for you so mary what was your what was the hardest part for you yeah um i was gonna say writing is normally the hardest part for pretty much everybody like just because they get very very picky very strict when marking it um also because time of course is you know you have to take it into account um but for me i believe it was i would say it was listening it was listening not because not because i couldn't understand the audio or what the people were saying but because the answers they just mentioned them all like it's really subtle it's about it's about attitude it's about sometimes even sarcasm you know it's very very subtle um to get to know which one is the right one like you really need to have a native level in order to at least that's how i that's how i find it um yeah yeah i understand what you say it's it's the typical cambridge exam and other exams i'm not saying they're trying to trick you but they are trying to trick you okay they're trying to yeah like totally certainly yeah yeah maybe i think i mean you say you need to be a native speaker i know native speakers i myself included you know if if i weren't an english teacher who helped people prepare for the exams i would would have found it difficult i know most native speakers if you just ask them to do the listening today without any preparation without really understanding the exam they would struggle because it's not clear sometimes you have to there are nuances or something very subtle differences which uh yeah that's really comes with training with you know preparation doing as many as possible and getting to know you know that how nasty the cambridge exams can be how they try to to play their game um but but yeah that's that's interesting sylvia what about you what was the hardest part hardest part for me the hardest part was use of english but because i was extremely worried since in every mock exam i have done i i got the bare minimum for the c2 level i was really struggling in this part in particular and i didn't really know what to do about it because it's not like listening okay you watch some videos you listen to music or i don't know reading you read a book you read something but use of english it's specifically grammar and vocabulary it can be anything yeah it can be anything that's the problem it's very hard to study for that because it can be anything it can be a phrasal verb it can be an idiom it can be these like really weird expression you know this collocation it's just yes yeah exactly and the thing that i've done it just read read read practice practice practice and i did like an ungodly amount of mock tests just the english the use of english part and i wrote down whatever whatever new expression i bumped into write it down and make some make up some phrase just to memorize it and i really did that every day and it really paid off big time because i i actually got a really good results in in the use of english while in the listening part i was extremely um sure about my my skill in english in in the listening part but it was really really difficult because as maria said it was really subtle what you have to write and what you have to choose from the questions were so similar and in the meantime that you are trying to understand what they are asking you the audience the audio goes just goes on yeah yeah exactly like you you're actually reading the answers while the people are talking and it's like you know it's like your brain can't cope with so many like tasks at the same time you know yeah exactly it's really hard yeah the first the first part was really i was panicking because okay i didn't understand anything or what they said it's not that i don't i didn't understand it that part i don't know yeah he said she said this but she said also this so these two questions these two answers are correct no it can be but yeah for me the hardest part to to prepare for was the use of english and it was really it was really hard to yeah to prepare for well it's it's what you said i mean it's very difficult obviously your your method paid off but it's you can learn all the idioms well you can't you can't learn all the idiomatic expressions or the phrasal verbs or you can learn a hundred and there could still be a hundred phrasal verbs or 500 phrasal verbs and there could still be one in the exam that you've never seen before so i think it's yeah that's the real test that's why you need to have the level before you before you even consider preparing but obviously you did it i mean with the use of english the good with the cambridge exams the good news is that you can compensate often i in my experience students sometimes fail the use of english or don't you know don't get the they get less than 60 but they compensate in other areas so obviously you want to do as well as possible in in all the parts but um it is particularly difficult i think usually as you said difficult to prepare for but i think actually doing mock tests um does help again your brain gets more used to the types of questions and the types of answers that they're looking for because you can't really practice for use of english it's not like speaking and speaking to you and practice i'm practicing speaking it's so uh rigid that i mean that's it you know this phrase you know this phrasal verbs you know this collocation yes you don't know it was screw you you just don't already it's not gray area no it's all black and white you know it or you don't well actually can i add one small thing to that um i agree for for a large part but um there's also the uh the part of the exam i forget which number but where you have to um rephrase something using um between three to eight words yeah yeah there was a huge struggle when i first started started practicing it got better over time but um what i found there when practicing if i would look at the answer key there was usually more than one answer possible and at least that helped me that that put my mind a little bit at ease that i knew that i didn't have to be spot on otherwise no points yeah but you could uh either have the first half correct and the second part not you would still score one point be sure you also get two points for each entry and you can yeah one point is also possible and there are sometimes two or three possible answers so i think for that specific part not necessary to be um yeah to to just have one correct answer uh sometimes there are more uh more ways to to answer it that's true that's true yeah but sometimes they're looking for a particular phrasal verb you need to get the right preposition that is also true yeah yeah but but that's i mean that's very important to know you get two points because some people just look at it and say i have no idea i have no idea what what phrasal verb they want what expression but write anything because not not anything but write something because you could could get um one point just just by using the right verb tense maybe it's the passive or the conditions also i think why some people i don't know if you recommend is also ben but some people uh some teachers also online recommend that you i think you even start with part four because it's quite difficult and you get the most points um but maybe with another but um uh yeah some people recommend that you start in a different order yeah well i've i've recommended actually starting with part five okay because and then yeah i mean it depends i i i've recommended this a few times i want to be careful because every every student is different but i for the proficiency it would be five six seven and four three two one because either the parts one and two you can do very quickly if you're running out of time you could do pretty quickly it takes maximum five minutes really but for the the readings five six and seven you need you need time you just need time to read so that's going to take up a lot of time and as you said part four you get more if you spend a bit more time on it you're gonna get more points whereas in part one for example if you don't know if you have the four words you think i don't know sitting there for 10 minutes thinking about it is not going to help you're just wasting time so just choose something you've still got a 25 chance of getting it right anyway hopefully you can reduce that to a 50 chance but um but yeah i agree with that you don't necessarily need to start with part one definitely no well regarding the the order for me personally um i i didn't feel like memorizing a different order to do them in but there was also because when i was doing practice tests again very important um was that way i found out that i that part usually went pretty quickly for me i could do it in maybe 50 minutes or something so i knew i would have a lot of time left so yeah i felt like i shouldn't bother with memorizing an order uh just start go through it really quickly uh and then i knew i would have enough time at least half an hour to just go over it again and review everything um so i've been doing that in practice and also during on the day itself and i i noticed at le i noticed at least i think two or three uh answers that i changed um when reviewing again right and then i've just finished reading the time limit um and i had a perfect score so it was actually it was good that i made those uh corrections sometimes you just your first instinct is the best but uh in my case it helps to go over it again definitely that's that's very important advice yes if you have time hopefully just some time to go because you can correct yourself that's an exercise i do with my students in class you know before i correct them like their writings or their any of the parts it's i give them the opportunity to correct themselves and often they can correct 90 of the mistakes that they make themselves so yeah just to give yourself that time i think i know as you said it paid off for you because you you you did very well so that that's good very good advice and michael what about you what's the what was the hardest part of the exam for you yeah for me also the the writing and the listening ah no not the listening the the speaking paper sorry um because um they don't just test your english skills but you also have to be creative so they also test something entirely different and for the the speaking paper in particular you also have to to really think on the fly because the the questions are really i don't know weird sometimes for example ma my question uh for the long term i think it's called why you have to talk two minutes about the question was something like uh what makes people do bad things and i was like okay now i have to talk about this for for two minutes so yeah the the the speaking paper is um the most unpredictable in my opinion and that's why it makes it difficult yeah the questions can be really really vague or abstract or ambiguous it's true um that interesting talking about the long term because this is something i've spoken with my students you have this question and then you have three prompts or three ideas that you you you can use if you want or if you need to i usually recommend to my students that they only use those ideas if necessary or you know if they they don't have more to say but just to focus on the question first but but when you get a question like you got michael what what did you do i mean did you just focus on the question or do you go straight to the ideas um yeah i uh during practice i always like you said try to come up with um my own topics or my own answers but you only have 10 minutes to uh sorry 10 10 seconds uh i wish it was 10 minutes 10 seconds to to think about it and and it it's really hard not to kind of shift your eyes toward towards the prompts so you you have to be really disciplined and yeah in in my case i i had to use the prompts immediately but yeah it kind of worked out so yeah it's difficult i mean if it's a very tough question or you just have no idea what to say then yeah you could go straight to the prompts but i think sometimes that and i've seen this in the practice classes i give is it's a distraction or it interrupts your train of thought or the student's train of thought they're just always thinking what can i say about this idea instead of just relaxing more or less and just talking about the question so i mean what about the other well while we're talking about the the speaking what how did you do that particular part because i think that's quite a difficult part did you look at the ideas first or just answer the question that part was difficult for me too because the question was like what motivates people and it was such a broad question i mean it's so difficult to speak about it for just two minutes and be um be not rambling about it but be a precise be disciplined as michael said and i was like okay i cannot do it with my own ideas because they are too much scrambled they are too much yeah they are too much for the english exams so i looked at at the prompt and they were really helpful because i think one was money and i said okay money i can talk about money every day and all day and but it was really stressful but when you start you start you just you speak and you speak and you speak and you speak you get in the zone right yeah you because it was re i was worried about that part two when i was doing the the the speaking part with you ben but i just said well i i practiced the the question is impossible it's really ridiculous this question but let's say how can i do it at my at my best so i just done it and it was so really stressful so yeah but you but you passed so it it was it was good it's all good in the end i mean that's that's the good news with all of you that the results were good so you all passed the exams all this stress and difficulty but you did it so um what about you maddie how was the speaking part for you yeah um i think that the um the speaking part is difficult just like uh michael said because it's not only vocab and grammar but also your own ideas like you have to you really need to um come up with good ideas good things to say and that was all that was something that was actually worrying me a lot because what if i couldn't you know come up with something good to say you know um but i was i was indeed i was pretty confident with with the speaking of you know i thought i was i was all right kind of thing and yeah i was but um but yeah no i am what i did was just take like um like practice tests like i was practicing with some of my british friends thank you thank you from here shout out to them yeah exactly um but no yeah i remember actually from my test um it was it was one of the warm-up questions but it got me all flustered it was something like why do you study english and i was like jesus christ you know i got frozen because i know there is i don't know too many things to say you know i don't i don't know like why do i study english i don't know you know um yeah try to like yeah try to um keep a cool head and just like answer kind of thing but no i've really i really like personally i've really struggled with um like getting nervous and all flustered and so that was that was the thing for me but it went it went without a hitch so fantastic so well done congratulations yeah it's good and what about you did you have any tips for the speaking in particular no i'm afraid not it was my uh my worst um part um i mean it still had a score that i would have would have been completely happy with going in but um i did feel on the day itself that it was uh it didn't go as well as i had hoped um so yeah i think the long term i didn't do that as well as i could have done um i was quite happy with how i handled the the part where you have to discuss photographs maybe also because um that's kind of similar to what you have to do when you practice for the when you do the c1 exam so you discuss with your partner you talk a bit about some photographs and yeah i felt like i could really demonstrate some good vocabulary and have some nice insights and descriptions of photographs um so that was yeah that was all well and good but um yeah the long term i was i was really struggling yeah i think i've during the day i felt it went pretty well overall and then the speaking part was the last part and i remember going in maybe a little bit too enthusiastic i was i was right at the top i was making one or two very silly jokes and i i think maybe it came off as being too uh too informal i don't know if they already started counting um points or whatever but i i felt like it it maybe i should have had a bit more of a serious attitude uh going in yeah i don't know i would i would have thought the examiners would like that because it's uh you know they have to see so many students and it must be quite boring for them so to have you know to lighten the the mood a little bit i think yeah but the thing is they will always be completely stoic if you say something hilarious like i did obviously or if you um if you make a mistake they will not give any reaction so it was very hard to gauge for me if i was on the right um uh footing yeah yeah i think as frank said when i spoke to him you know they have their script each the examiners have their script they have to follow because it has to be the same in every town every city every country um so maybe they're told not to laugh they mustn't laugh they mustn't mustn't have fun i don't know but yeah i wouldn't think that's a big problem but um but yeah maybe be careful of that um i think max had a question on on the listening i think we covered max's question um and we've covered a lot of tips on other parts um i would like to say something about listening if i may um because um what i found was listening was qui was indeed quite challenging and um i felt it was uh definitely more difficult than the the c1 exams that i practiced um also because it went a lot faster like on the day uh one of the uh the audio uh um tracks that we heard just went so fast it really uh threw me off a little bit um um so yeah i think you just have to be prepare for it be prepared for that and um what also helped me was kind of as a through line really for the whole exam um i think um it's all about uh paraphrasing and and synonyms like in every part you have to be able to recognize paraphrases and synonyms to ask questions uh in the reading in the use of english part but also when speaking and also maybe even most of all uh when doing the listening part because um yeah even more than in the c1 exam in the c2 exam uh in the audio there will always be completely different words than on the answer sheet there will never be a word that's exactly the same and if there is a word that's exactly the same for example the speaker uses a word like delighted and one of the answer options is also delighted then that's definitely not the answer but it's always always synonyms so you really have to put yourself in that mindset that you're constantly looking for okay what are other ways of saying this what are other ways of saying that which of these four answers says that this person is delighted in a different way and i think that is uh the same for the reading part um for the last part of the reading part uh you just need to look out for synonyms because the question are so it's just one line and you don't you don't have much to work with and so you just have to be on the lookout for synonyms really synonyms i think you if you want to do the c2 you really have to be on top of your game with the cinnamons yeah and i think what helped me going in i i already um even when i'm not studying i i listen to podcasts a lot because i just like that as a as a as a medium and um what helped me was to um yeah to listen to podcasts obviously and specifically to um to put them at like 1.5 times the the speed in some apps you can do that i think on spotify you can do it in some apps you have to download the episode but then you can change up the speed and it just goes a lot faster but it's still um you can still understand it and then when you switch back after like five minutes to the regular speed it just seems like it's going at a glacial pace and it's you think wow why are these people speaking in such a uh such a boring way so um it really helps to occasionally learn uh or listen to podcasts at just a faster than natural speed to to um yeah just to get you uh a bit more alert i think that's an interesting tip yeah so again it's like uh like marathon training no sometimes you have to run quicker in the training than you do in the marathon itself but you so you're prepared so yeah i hadn't thought of that tip but yeah definitely listening to podcasts listen to everything in english of course it's for proficiency you have to do everything in english anyway um but yeah very good tips there just a quick quite well quick as a as quick as you like but there's a couple of telegram members asked this question zaira i think that's the pronunciation and muhammad muhammad dresser mohammed sorry about the pronunciation if that's wrong but it's about books and materials um what books and materials did you use and and what would you recommend um i don't know where we are start with michael this time i'm not sure where we are um yeah i used the book objective proficiency it's an official cambridge book and it contains a lot of exercises and tasks and they are really tailored to this exam because yeah it's it's an official book so yeah that really helped me and like mentioned previously also youtube videos mostly yeah i mean yeah obviously my channel first and foremost that's that's very uh obvious i'm joking but i mean if you did what if you found any other channels useful then then i i don't mind you mentioning them here um i i think it's called english class or something like that and i used it for practicing for the writing paper because uh this guy kinda gave templates so to speak on each of the the different types of text and yeah i kind of adopted them and it was really helpful too okay i haven't heard of well maybe i probably have seen it but english class so i'll look for that and share it in the description if i find it um and jerome what did you mean you had very i guess you had little time to prepare you you did the course didn't you but did you have any particular books well yeah the book that i used was actually uh catered to the c1 advanced level um it's called gold um and you have in various editions so this is the gold c1 advanced uh by the publisher pearson um i do think it was quite useful it helped did help me prepare actually for a higher level as well because it contained a lot of grammar and some really well good exercises but i think if you know from the start that you are going to go for c2 i would probably go for something like the book uh michael mentioned objective proficiency or something yeah um but um yeah that definitely helped i watched a ton of youtube videos uh one channel that comes to mind apart from uh to the point english of course is um uh closely observed english i don't know if you've heard of that i think i just checked and he's not that active at the moment maybe he will make start making videos again but uh just one guy who is also teaching classes and um yeah making videos with a lot of tips for i think uh two or three different cambridge levels and um yeah there's a lot of tips but i also noticed there is quite some overlap between uh several channels uh i do think that the way he explained things i think his name is christopher uh is um um yeah just to um were best suited to me i think yeah yeah yeah i think i know that guy yeah he's very very clear in his explanations yeah yeah as you said there are quite a few some very specific channels for cambridge exams some general english channels which have some videos for the cambridge exams and yeah there's going to be some overlaps um but i think that's not a problem it kind of reinforces if that's like anything you you're not necessarily wasting your time if you see two videos explaining the same thing because the teacher will have a different way of explaining it and maybe a different slightly different tips but um but yeah good advice marie what did you did you use any books yeah i am there is this book by a national geographic called uh close look so it would be the close-up situ they have books for all levels and they are like cambridge like they point pointing towards cambridge exams um so that was very useful um yeah close up and also i used uh the same as as michael the objective proficiency yeah and then in terms of youtubers i didn't really watch lots of videos well i watched some of yours then um and they were very very useful but now i didn't um what i did was just like watch things in english but like the things that i liked if that makes sense like shows or films that i enjoyed um but i could be doing that like on a daily basis like every day while having lunch or something i just played something in english um but nothing related to the test if that makes sense i don't know if that's good but well here we are yeah i think it's good just for your english that's the best way to learn yeah in general in general just by enjoying it you know just by watching something that you enjoy exactly and as long as you do know the exam you get to know the exam and you know what they're asking for you in each part if you have the level that that should be enough but um yeah it depends depends on each student true but um sylvia what about you um i've used uh grammar vocabulary for cambridge advanced and proficiency this one i have this one famous orange a gold mine because i use it i've used it for the use of english part because it's so rich with expression with the synonyms with whatever you need for the use of english parts and i've also used the english news books from cambridge i've used the idioms one and the collocations one the yellow and the orange i think one and they were extremely helpful because they teach you some really nifty things that you can say to be creative to be really not basic just to be i don't know one level above what you are what you're doing right now it's not grammar it's not new vocabulary it's just what how you can say things differently and i think that for the situ level it's important not to say the everything the same and not to say whatever you are thinking in a basic way but in a very creative and yeah creative way which is extremely difficult to yeah to say yeah it's good to have as many options as possible so you have not just a not just one one option yeah yeah if i may add just two quick things um uh what i also watched a lot was um um a type of video that i think uh the the official cambridge channel posted a lot of which are uh just um uh entire speaking parts um actual students doing doing the exam so i watched a ton of those i couldn't get enough of it i watched everything that i could find also for other different type of exams yeah just to see how how those people interacted and what kind of things they came up with and to also try and analyze for myself okay i wonder if this person got a high mark or if they got marked down for this or that um so that was helpful and another thing as mariam mentioned um it helps to watch and stuff that you already enjoy um like i said i listen to a lot of podcasts and in particular um a couple of podcasts that i really like are about uh movies and um a couple or as one about music and um what i liked about those i mean i think you can find these things for any topic but um they combine a lot of elements that are useful for the listening part because usually it's two or three people um they are quite knowledgeable about what they're talking about it will contain some element of review um because they are talking about a movie or a piece of music or they are expressing their their feelings in colorful language um and um yeah they're also trying to sort of analyze it or even have a little bit of a debate so those are all things that come up not just in the listening part but also in the speaking part where you have to discuss find common ground maybe disagree with each other so those type of podcasts really help me so where people are actually knowledgeable about a topic preferably something in the in the art or popular culture department um yeah that was really helpful and enjoyable for me to learn english in that way also you will learn a lot of language that you that you didn't know just by context yeah if people are talking positively about something and a word that you don't know comes up then well chances are that that will also be a positive word yeah yeah marie yeah sorry yeah um i just wanted to say that uh for listening something that helped me a lot was and it might sound very typical but listening to the bbc because for example when i was commuting driving whatever um that was a way in which you know you're just taking advantage of time because you're driving but you're listening to the bbc at the same time and sometimes with the bbc i find that it's just very similar to the things that they actually um put in the test like sometimes when i'm listening to the bbc it feels like it's a listening like exercise you know um just because they use like fancy vocab and you know they speak about very um like the topics that they address sometimes you know can be very suitable for these tests in my opinion yeah i mean the bbc is a huge resource in general but did you listen to one particular podcast or one particular one just just the uh the typical like bbc radio like the other player on your phone right and that was it yeah because i think probably the bbc radio 4 is because that's mostly conversation i mean bbc radio ones a lot of music for young people oh no no no no music it was like the news and yeah the news mainly it could be world service then maybe the people yeah i think so yeah i think so yeah i'm sorry i'm not so clued up no no it's fine in the podcast that the bbc produces uh they talk almost exactly like they do in the in the audio parts of the listening um paper with a lot of uh synonyms they will never repeat the same word in uh in in you know a specific uh part of the audio um it's just very well written really really by the book english basically yeah yeah and you have so many different types of podcasts so many different themes so i would recommend you listen to different themes different subjects so you get a range of vocabulary um but i'm very conscious of your time i don't want to take too much i i think i wanted to ask you because i think this is a good question i think michael you suggested this question or maybe jeroen but um did were there any on on the day of the exam were there any surprises anything or can you give any tips for the actual day of the exam um let's start with michael um yeah uh when one tip i can give you is um when you have your speaking paper first um arrive really early kinda to get to know your partner when you arrive they tell you who your partner is and just talk to them a little bit um are they more of an introvert or more of an extrovert it really helps to to have talked before um this this kind of brings me to my first surprise um because yeah like i mentioned i i tried to be really early i was there 40 minutes before before the exam started instead of the required 20 minutes um yeah after checking in the instructor said something in the line of oh great you're both here already we're ahead of schedule so your exam can start in about two minutes and we were like oh okay um so yeah that was was the first surprise but yeah it worked out in the end i would have liked to get my partner uh get to know my partner a little better um yeah and another surprise was they advertised about 30 minute breaks between papers in reality are more like five minute bathroom breaks so you don't really have have a lot of time to relax so what to eat for that matter so yeah really bring a quick bite to replenish your energy and your sugar something you can eat really quickly um yeah because the the rest of the break basically is instructions for for the next paper okay very interesting very very useful tips yeah that's uh and yeah also something that just came to my mind um about your mobile phones or similar devices they are safe kept for you during the entire block of the exam so if you want to quickly check your notes on the upcoming paper um write them down on on a piece of paper or print them because you won't have access to your mobile phone very good very very interesting yeah very practical tips as i said and just going back to what you were saying about speaking to your partner i don't know if you did this but i always recommend that you it's good to get to know your partner a little bit but specifically and it's very simple just because in the speaking part people often waste valuable seconds then shall i go first or shall you go i'll go no no you no please so just just before you start start the exam just say i will go first in part three or you go first in part two whatever but just so you're not wasting those seconds it seems it seems like a detail but it's actually you know when you have two minutes or one minute to speak that's uh those seconds are very valuable so yeah definitely i mean it's it's crucial to devise a little strategy beforehand yeah it depends yeah obviously you didn't have as much time as you you hoped you would have or you expected but that's uh at least that at least you can decide who's going to start um and jerome what about you any exam day tips or surprises uh yeah by the way i have to leave in about uh okay so um this is going to be my last answer i think okay um yeah as in general i would say maybe it sounds a bit dramatic but um just expect the unexpected uh because i've experienced a lot of um just small minor things that could be annoying and but i've also heard stories from other people like michael uh of things that are just going a little bit differently than you might expect beforehand especially um well in my mind cambridge just like the bbc is like this sort of i don't know institute that does everything really correctly and rigidly so i was quite surprised to find that my exam was in you know a little bit of an old uh older building with a creaky window next to me and the seats were all different and it was just a little bit more i wouldn't say ramshackle but it wasn't as tightly organized as i expected also there was some there were some things unclear at the beginning wasn't unclear in which room i had to go i had to go up and down some stairs couple of times to find out where i had to be right all those things um and if you are not prepared for that or if if those are things that that bother you then it can really um uh mess with your concentration i think so you really have to be able to let it go or kind of think of ahead of time that you know anything can happen uh you know your breaks can be very short uh yeah your exam can start early or a lot later maybe the speaking partner that you've been practicing with is uh is sick that day and you have to um uh do it with an unknown person um all those things it's really um it's really important that you are aware that things can go differently yeah expect the unexpected right yeah and one last thing i want to mention we haven't really talked about the difference between the the computer-based exam or the uh paper-based exam but uh yeah i would always go for computer-based unless you're a very slow typer or something but i think um doesn't matter which one you do but um make sure you use uh the highlight tool so bring a highlighter yourself marking pen or use the highlight tool uh in the um in the application um practice with that also ahead of time because it's a little bit finicky it really requires a specific mouse action but that's just so helpful to try and um read as much of the answers beforehand you know when the explanation is running in your earphones um just mark all the words that you think might be of importance um because you're gonna have to read them two or three more times um yeah and that was really helpful for me to just highlight you know as much as possible um yeah i found that a very helpful tool perfect perfect yeah very good yeah i think um in the interview i gave to frank he gave all the advantages of computer-based exams i think the conclusion is that it's the best the best option as you said maybe if you're a very slow type or not so um not so comfortable with technology with a computer then maybe paper-based but in general computer-based um you need to go unfortunately uh yes no problem no problem at all thank you so much for for doing this you really gave some great advice which i'm sure the tips you you gave are going to help a lot of people so thank you so much for this well thanks for having me um have a good day and for everyone who's watching uh good luck with your exams and exam preparation and i hope it was uh was helpful definitely without a doubt all right guys take care take care see you later bye bye bye okay guys we'll we'll continue for just a couple more questions just if you have time if you're okay to continue okay um yeah i had a feeling this would go on longer than we have so many questions but yeah just a couple more yeah just two questions what did you do right in prep prep in your preparation and what did you do wrong in your preparation just maybe one thing that you think you did right that you could recommend to others and one thing you would if you had to do it again you would change uh maddy let's start with you um something that i think was good and helped me a lot was trying to be in contact with natives all the time um not only when i was in birmingham but also once i was in spain so there is this app called hellotalk and it's basically like to exchange languages and so somebody who wants to learn your native language or your mother tongue um gets to learning with you and then you want to learn their um mother tongue and so that was very useful because i got to to practice english with some people that wanted to learn spanish and and that was a good yeah it has also these like voice message tool as well so it's just really really useful um to just be in contact with natives like an exchange or an intercom exactly yeah exactly um and something bad i guess is i didn't put as much time as i should but that was because i was you know i had a lot on my plate and so it was it was hard to deal with everything but definitely um put as much time and effort as possible because it's a really hard text yeah yeah yeah but you did it you did it so you passed so that's whatever against all logs against what no i think you did very well so that's great sylvia what about you one thing you one thing you did well one thing you perhaps wouldn't do next i absolutely agree with marie and i would recommend to not isolate yourself to be part of a group as i said before to overcame to overcome your shyness because i am i was shy before because i said what if i made some terrible mistakes but it's normal to make mistakes everyone makes me makes mistakes so don't don't let yourself down when you do mistakes you make mistakes sorry yeah and exactly for example yeah everyone makes mistakes i mean it's normal is and it's not something that you have to hide from others so don't be intimidated by others just try to see them as an opportunity to learn and as your opportunity to be better at what you are doing right now if it's english or whatever and what i did wrong is i didn't time myself properly for the writing part and it was the part where i got in which i got the worst results but because time is unforgiving i mean you i think you have to time yourself as soon as possible as possible as soon as you are okay with that because is the exam it's not like you don't know how to write but if you write a very good ex say a very good i don't know article in two hours that's okay but it's two hours it's not one hour and a half yeah that was the only thing that i think i did wrong yeah do you have to time yourself yeah i think that's that's very good advice too yeah maddie yeah yeah i was i was gonna say writing is also uh the part that i own neglected the most just because it's just hard to sit down like to get around to sitting down and actually write a piece of writing because it's just easier to just grab a reading or use of english paper and just you know fill it out kind of thing um for writing you really need to sit down in order to get your head around thing um and that was that was hard and so i absolutely neglected it and i regret so much um because i could have done better yes absolutely very good good advice yeah thank you michael what did you do well and what did you what would you have done differently um in my opinion what's important is to practice for the speaking paper so it's crucial to get kind of a study group and practice with them just to chat or to do some sample exams because especially for the speaking part mock exams are important because you kind of get a feel how long two minutes can be and yeah how long you have to talk um yeah and what i i would have done differently in in hindsight yeah i i would have liked a little more preparation time but yeah in the end and you did it so uh yeah it was a crunch but yeah okay yeah there is something that i would like to add in terms of speaking um something that i did and apparently it worked um was basically you know this part yeah it's the two minutes i can't remember the name but the two minutes like monologue um yeah you know you get the questions yeah the long term yeah thank you sorry um you know you get the question and then you get the uh like the bullet points um at first i didn't use the bullet points but then i did but the thing was i tried to link the idea so like if i was talking about the first bullet point then i linked the second one to the first if that makes sense and that apparently helped a lot because i've got like a very cohesive uh speech it was all linked kind of thing it wasn't just like different things it was all like a whole and that helped a lot it flowed yeah well that that's difficult to do but yeah that's that's good it's in um yeah it's difficult to do i imagine but if you can if you could manage to do that i guess it depends on on the question and the the ideas but yeah it's good good advice yeah excellent okay i just have one more question it's um did you or is it possible to enjoy the experience because i i see so many students they they're very intense with their studies and it's very they take it very seriously of course because they maybe they have pressure they put pressure on themselves to pass but is it possible to enjoy the experience of preparing for and taking the the c2 proficiency in particular mario you're nodding your head so does that mean yeah yeah um yeah totally um i enjoyed it a lot i mean it was hard and i was honestly i was so scared of playing the test michael knows because i saw him i was so scared it was really um really scary because it's something very personal for me englishes at the end of the day is it's a language uh i've been like spending a lot of time with during these like uh past couple of years and so it was it was something very um very important for me also i was scared of letting down my friends like my british friends because they all say that i'm very good but of course i wanted to to show them that i could do it as well um and also myself you know and so that was very um it was scary but english is something that i enjoy a lot and that i love indeed and so um it's it's very important to enjoy the process not only with these exam you know with your studies in general it's important to enjoy the process if you're not enjoying you know studying or whatever you're doing then there is there is a problem you know it's important to enjoy it so that you don't lose uh motivation and so that you keep going it's very important you know it doesn't you know it's useless to binge english one day and then you don't do anything for like two weeks that's that's useless like that's doesn't you know it's consistency and sustainability exactly and in order yeah and in order to get that you really need to be enjoying the process is the key exactly yeah that's what i say about you know learning english in general as you said but it's different with the exam because it people do take it very seriously and it is it is serious but it's difficult to just kind of relax and just enjoy it because it's as i said some people need it for you know to go to university or to get a job yes more pressure but yeah if you can enjoy the process it's much you're much more likely to to pass i think because you're going to study every day and you'll just enjoy the experience also also in terms of money because the test at least here in spain is very expensive it's exceedingly expensive and so that was something that was worrying me as well because i was like man if i fail i would have been wasting a lot of money you know like that was more pressure so i think exactly it's pressure that you're putting you're putting uh on yourself and of course that takes your stole of course yeah yeah yeah it's true what about you sylvia did you enjoy the experience yeah the experience of practicing with others of um meeting other from all parts of the world it was really enjoyable because i made some some friends and i think you shouldn't really think about these intrusive thoughts what if i feel what if i let down my family or and because you are you are stopping yourself from do from staying for myself is for my english level i am going to take the sea to not my family not my friends and of course it's a lot of money because even here in italy it's a lot of money but it's for your enjoyment is for your career and if you fail i mean if you fail just yeah it's not it's not the end of the world yeah it's not the end of the world take it again yeah we say no sorry yeah you can take it again and look at the bright side you you know what you have done wrong you know what what were your mistakes and you know what you can do to improve it's never a failure is never a failure and okay you are done never it's uh even failure it's a learning in is a learning experience of course everyone wants to succeed i mean but don't be so harsh on yourself even if you are you can't do it everything right uh in on the say on the first day that was my um my mistake too because i thought okay my english is i think it's okay let's do the situ and i failed everything the first day i said wow maybe i shouldn't do it and then a little by little i tried to speak more i tried to read more i tried to listen to everything more and i passed it so everyone can do it we are not aliens yeah exactly exactly like nobody should get disheartened yeah because of the uh the results at the beginning or something yeah as i've said before failure is not the opposite of success failure is part of success it's part of just another step so it's yeah don't beat yourself up if you if you don't pass first time and you you process michael i'll give you the you the last word to you so um what did you enjoy i mean your preparation was pretty short but um did you enjoy it um yeah sure i mean i i enjoy english of course and uh like the others mentioned uh getting to meet new people talk to them a little and yeah from all over the world really and yeah definitely a pleasant experience i i can highly recommend good excellent i think that was fantastic guys are some amazing tips and and advice we could continue for two more hours i think but i think we have to stop at some point but again thank you so for so much for doing this and thank you for hanging around in the telegram groups to help others um and yeah thank you for giving up a big part of your saturday morning i think a lot of people will really get a lot of benefit from your your help you watched the whole video well done put this emoticon in the comments to to let me know that you've seen the whole interview because i'd like to know how many of you actually got to the end thank you once again to marie sylvia michael and jeroen for all your time and fantastic tips and information guys hit the subscribe button and like because i'm going to be making more of these types of videos if you also put in the comments any extra questions that you may have about the exams there's maybe a possibility that some of these guys will come back for another interview in the future to answer any extra questions you have join the telegram group if you like to to get more more tips from other students including some of the students who are in the video today um and i'll see you very soon for another video take care

Channel: To The Point English with Ben.

Views: 6,570

Keywords: how to pass the c2 proficiency Cambridge English exam, how to pass the c2 proficiency exam, c2 proficiency exam tips, c2 proficiency Cambridge English exam tips, c2 proficiency Cambridge exam, c2 proficiency Cambridge English exam, how to prepare for the c2 proficiency Cambridge English exam, cpe exam tips, cpe tips, how to pass the cpe, how to pass the cpe exam, cpe Cambridge English exam, cpe Cambridge English exam tips, Cambridge English exams

Id: EcKQR8dR1No

Length: 98min 30sec (5910 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021