Many students talk about how they are more afraid of their speaking test than any other part of their English test, but in my experience, writing causes them more problems. In the B2 First Writing test. Personally, I think it’s because any errors they make are on paper for anyone to see, rather than immediately forgotten as with speaking.
Stop worrying, I have compiled these 39 tips on how to improve your B2 First Writing. I hope you find them useful, and they encourage you to practice more and push through the pain! After all, practice makes perfect!
In any writing test, time is a killer, so that is a theme that runs through these tips. It doesn’t matter if you use them in your preparation or in your test, they will make your time management much more effective.
Before Your B2 First Writing Test
1 – Read Widely: If you want to write well, then read. If you want to write well in B2 First, then read, the British Council have many reading exercises on their website. Magazine adverts, takeout menus, travel brochures and classified ads are all ways to improve your reading, and therefore your B2 level writing. This web page describes what is needed for B2 reading and has a list of articles on the right-hand side for you to practice your reading. Remember, the more you read, the better your writing!
2 – Understand the test: It is essential to learn exactly what is expected of you in each part of the Cambridge B2 First Writing test and how to complete them well. There is general writing advice, tips and information, and for Part 1 and Part 2. You can also test yourself with the related quizzes here and here.
3 – Review the Rubric: When you are preparing for your test, it is crucial that you understand how you can improve your score. You can do this by looking at how Part 1 and Part 2 of the writing test are marked.
4 – Use Official Questions: Practice using official questions, some sites use questions reported by recent test takers, but the grammar in these questions is often wrong.
5 – Check Practice Scores: If you use the rubric mentioned in section 3 above, then you will realise that the practice score from the rubric has no relation to your actual C1 Advanced writing score, (Why? I don’t know). To convert these practice score to ‘result’, then use these conversion tables.
6 – Plan Your Writing: Learn how to plan what you need to write. Having a basic template for Part 1 in particular will help you fit the question to what you can do rather than treating every question as new. This will make it much easier to write your Part 1 answers quickly and correctly. Planning for the different choices in Part 2 can be found in the relevant articles. A proposal is just the same as a repot, but for something in the future, rather than the past.
7 – Express Opinions: Understand that you MUST write your best essay etc, not the one that shows the examiner how clever you are. Maybe this means that you support an opinion you don’t usually agree with! Ordinary ideas in great English, not great ideas in ordinary English!
8 – Practice Regularly: If you practice, you will know your structure, the best places to use good grammar, how to talk about people in different ways and so on. When you’re ready, get a teacher to take you further.
9 – Proofread Carefully: As you practice, notice your common errors, then in the last five minutes, check your essay for those errors.
10 – Master Paraphrasing: Learn how to paraphrase quickly and effectively, it will save your precious time in Part 1.
11 – Use Linking words: Memorise linking words and their synonyms.
12 – Employ Noun Phrases: Learn how to use noun phrases to make your writing much more concise, easy to write and also to read.
13 – Use Referencing: for example after mentioning people once, you can then talk about ‘them’, ‘they’, ‘their’ and so on. However, only do this if it is obvious to the reader, you are still talking about the same people. Once you practice this, you’ll begin to trust yourself to use them correctly, and to trust your reader to understand. If you are more than two or three sentences away from the initial ‘people’, then mention ‘people again, just so your, reader knows.
14 – Understand Formality (also called register or tone): Be absolutely clear how you can express yourself formally, semi-formally or informally. This is immensely important in many exams. If you are in doubt, remember who is going to read your answer. Your teacher, your neighbour, your best friend, your bank manager?
15 – Work with a Teacher: Although you can learn by yourself, learning with a teacher will be more structured and they will be able to give you quick and easy corrections, advice and usually a score, so you track your progress.
16 – Study Sample Answers: Read sample answers to show you what is expected, how they are written and follow the structure in Part 1 and Part 2.
During your B2 First Writing Test
17 – Paraphrase the Question: Rephrase the question so if someone reads it, they can understand what the essay is about without needing to read the original question. If you can’t paraphrase the question in your test, just do your best and move on. Don’t waste time.
18 – Focus on Grammar: Whatever grammar you use, try your best to be accurate. Many believe that if you attempt to use better grammar, then you will get an extra point for trying. This only happens if you do not impede communication, which often happens due to errors in that grammar. Get it right! You can also improve this by using sentence templates, which you change for each answer.
19 – Use Natural Vocabulary: Many tests talk about less common lexis or idiomatic vocabulary, but that doesn’t mean you have to use rare words or lots of idioms, it means you need to be natural. Topic vocabulary is always really useful.
20 – Write a Conclusion: you must write a conclusion – any essay or other piece of writing is considered incomplete if there is no conclusion. If you are out of time, stop writing the body paragraph and write a quick conclusion.
21 – Proofread: When you are finished writing, as you check your work, if you realise that the essay doesn’t match the introduction (it happens often), then change the introduction rather than the paragraphs.
B2 First Writing Part 1
22 – Know Task Requirements: Understanding exactly what you need to do to write a C1 Advanced Part 1 essay is essential. If you are in doubt about anything, then you will not have enough time.
23 – Use Paraphrasing Techniques: although synonyms are useful, if you can paraphrase by changing word order or form, it is much more accurate and less stressful than trying to think of other words that mean exactly the same thing.
24 – Avoid Global sentences: Don’t use a global sentence in your introduction unless you are absolutely certain it is correct. These sentences that are supposed to set the context for the whole essay are written poorly by test takers who are under enormous pressure. Yes, they will add words that maybe you can’t write later, but you are showing the examiner how poor your writing is if you get them wrong.
25 – Be Specific: You will really improve the accuracy of your essay if you avoid saying that everyone does the same thing. For example, ‘young people like playing computer games’. That’s not true, while ‘Many young people like playing computer games’ is true.
26 – Manage Practice Time: When you start practicing, give yourself more time. Later keep to the time limit.
27 – Adhere to Word Count: In some writing tests, test takers need to write more than a certain number of words, such as more than 250 words. In Cambridge Advanced writing, though you need to BETWEEN 140 words and 190 words. If you too few, then you will probably have not answered the question fully. If you write too many words, then maybe you are not being concise enough. A few words under or over is OK but be careful.
28 – Develop Ideas: Your essay should move forward with each sentence. Don’t repeat what you said in the last sentence or give a really obvious example. Move your argument forward!
29 – Respect the Examiner: Don’t think your writing examiner is stupid. It is amazing how many people will give examples that are too simple when they are obvious from the rest of the essay. Don’t explain what a bus station is or go into detail about why people go on holiday. He or she knows most things about everyday life.
30 – Use Examples Wisely: Don’t base your paragraph on an example. To give a short example, just add it to a sentence. A longer should have its own sentence, but it must be brief.
31 – Vary Language: try to use different language (grammar n vocab) in each paragraph. Writing this way will show the examiner what you can do rather than repeating what you have done. If you use a conditional sentence once, then you will get a point. But you will still only get one point even if you use three or four of them.
32 – Use Conditional Sentences: these sentences are incredibly useful, but make sure you use the right type otherwise your meaning may change.
33 – Ensure Subject-verb Agreement: Take care that your subjects and verbs match. If you write about one if something, then that something must be plural. Easy to miss, but easy to lower your score.
34 – Enhance Vocabulary: B2 First is an advanced English test, so be careful about using words that most English learners learn in Primary school, such as beautiful, big or clever. If you must use them add an adjective, for example: stupendously beautiful, quite big or incredibly clever. Topic vocabulary is always useful and apps such as Quizlet make learning it fun and easy.
Part 2
35- Choose the Right Task: When preparing for C1 Advanced Writing Part 2, you have to learn how to write emails / letters, reports, articles and reviews. In the exam, however, you have a choice of one out of three. This means that if you really don’t like one of the main options before your test, then you will get asked about one of the others you do like. It’s just maths.
36 – Adjust Tone/Formality: Register or tone is critically important, for example how would a letter to a friend or best friend be different? If you are writing a report for your boss, then it would be much more formal than one for a club of people your own age.
37 – Express Emotion: Don’t be afraid to express joy, fury or any other emotion in letters or emails as long as it appropriate.
38 – Consider Your Reader: As ever, write for your reader. If they are your friend, then they should know some of your background at least. If they are your bank manager, they should know your financial circumstances etc.
39 – Use Subheadings: In reports and Proposals, it is customary to have subheadings so that readers can skim through it and find the part that interests them most. It is really IMPORTANT that you realise that there is usually more than one way to split the information into sections. It all depends on WHO you are writing the report for.
Conclusion
I hope you found these tips useful. Please think about how much you can do before your B2 First Writing test, the more you do, the more time you will have. Good luck with your test!