Use of English in Reverse

Understand a range of texts.

Show your grammar and vocabulary control.

Produce written pieces.

Follow and understand a range of familiar spoken materials.

Produce spontaneous spoken language.

 These are the five main assessment purposes of the Cambridge B2 First exam in its four exam papers. Hold on, how come there are five general assessment criteria for just only four exam papers? 

The Reading and Use of English paper is miles more difficult and challenging than any other. Succeeding here requires extensive reading, good knowledge of its structure, and a very good control of the B2 vocabulary and grammar contents.

The latest is hard work. For this reason, the Use of English parts, 2, 3 and 4, are the ones not easy to tame. To see it through, continuous work and a logical mind is required from the learners. Not even an infinite number of exam tasks completely do the trick. “Not very optimistic!”, you might say.

The secret lies in never giving up and trying out other techniques by adopting different approaches to the Use of English tasks. 

This is what I am doing, as a teacher, continuously investigating, comparing and analysing various ways to help my students with. Attending recently one of the Cambridge webinars has given me some food for thought. What I have tried later on has worked. It has done wonders to my students’ score in the Use of English parts. EUREKA!

What I invited my students to do has been trying the REVERSE method!

The urgency to improve B2 First Cambridge candidates’ score in the Reading and Use of English exam tasks needs action with no delay. So, let’s skip the theory!

Roll up your sleeves, my dearest learners 😉

Use of English Paper Quiz

First, you must see how familiar you are with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th parts of the Reading and Use of English paper. Good luck!

The quiz above has not only tested your familiarity with the Use of English parts, it will also serve as a tune-up for what follows next.

Are you ready to become the almighty lord of the B2 First Use of English tasks? 

Worries away. What I will ask you to do is create the three Use of English exam tasks (2, 3 and 4) starting with an already competed text. This technique is called THE REVERSE. It consists in revisiting a text from an exam task and transforming it into three tasks:

• Open cloze (part 2)
• Word formation (part 3)
• Key word transformation (part 4)

The text that serves the best is the completed text from Part 3. We can find it in any Reading and Use of English paper from sample tests. You can also use any of the texts from Part 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7. Even the transcript to the audio tasks could be useful.

Let’s now embark on our upside down journey!

Completed Part 3 Text

Same family, different people

The three children grew up in the same home, with the same rules and values, but for friends of the family the fascinating thing is that now, as young adults, they all have very different personalities.

Grace, 23, always has to be busy. She never seems relaxed, even in her spare time. Ever since she was a young girl, she has always been highly motivated to succeed, and now that she is working in a business environment she makes no secret of how ambitious she is: her aim is to be Managing Director before she is 30.

Whereas Grace can sometimes appear rather unemotional, even cold, Evie has strong feelings about almost everything. She can also be quite sensitive to what others say, particularly if she feels their comments are unfair. But she is always kind to her friends, and sympathetic whenever any of them calls round to talk about their problems.

Daniel, just 19, is far less sociable and hates being indoors for long. He’s the most adventurous one of the three.  He’s mad about sports and loves riding motorbikes at terrifying speeds. For this reason, he takes too many risks, and he gives his family a lot of anxious moments; however, somehow he always manages to get home safely. 

Use of English Part 2 task

Turn the text above into a part 2, open cloze, task by taking out eight words and leaving eight gaps instead. Remember that they must be function words. When  taking them out of the text, since they carry little meaning, we easily understand it. These words are:

• adverbs (more, less)
• auxiliary verbs (are, have)
• articles (the, a/an)
• conjunctions (although, but)
• modal verbs (may, can)
• prepositions (as, to)
• pronouns (he, us)

Can you identify the part of speech for each of the eight missing words? Do the matching activity below.

Use of English Part 3 task

Transform the completed text into a part 3, word formation, task. Choose eight words and shorten them to their root word, e.g. fascinating – FASCINATE. Remember to write the words in CAPITALS (at the end of the line if possible, as in the exam task itself). Leave a space in the same line of the text instead.

Read more about parts of speech, like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the following article: Parts Of Speech And Their Position In The English Sentence

Write down all the possible word forms to the eight stems from the sample task: 

1. PERSON
2. SUCCESS
3. AMBITION
4. EMOTION
5. SENSE
6. SYMPATHY
7. SOCIETY
8. TERRIFY

Use of English Part 4 task

Turn six sentences from the completed text into a key word transformation activity, thus creating a part 4 task. Remember that the answer must contain between two and five words, including the “key” word given.

Example:

0 The three children grew up in the same home.

BROUGHT

The children’s ………………………………………………………. in the same home.

The gap can be filled by the words “parents brought them up“.

Now, it’s your turn.

Are any of your questions similar to mine?

Why don’t you try and do the task I have prepared? Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using the word given.

The possible answers to my six questions are:

1. ARE FASCINATED Ι BY 
2. APPEARS TO Ι BE RELAXED
3. BEEN HIGHLY/VERY Ι INTERESTED IN 
4. BECOME MANAGING Ι DIRECTOR BY/UNTIL
5. IS NEVER Ι UNKIND TO
6. IS MUCH Ι MORE

You have created three new tasks, which are similar in structure with Part 2, 3 and 4 from the Reading and Use of English paper in the Cambridge B2 First exam. I am sure the Cambridge team would be most interested in publishing your work as part of an official exam. Amazing! 

Before you get officially employed as a Cambridge exams content developer, challenge your classmate or B2 First buddy to do your three tasks.

Why did I invite you to adapt an already completed text from a Part 3 task and create three exam tasks of your own? What’s the point?

You have now become much more knowledgeable about what to expect in Parts 2, 3 and 4, like the kind of words needed to complete Part 2, the simple root words given in Part 3 and their complex family words you need to fill the eight gaps with, as well as how part 4 works.

Creating exam tasks is second to none. It arms you with a logical mind. This is what you need to succeed in the Cambridge B2 First Reading and Use of English paper.

Stay tuned for more words of advice and handy material!