This month we focus on the FCE Use of English paper and give practical advice on how to prepare yourself for the tasks you will find in the exam.
One of the features of the Use of English paper is that it is designed to reflect actual language use in real life situations. The skills you need for this paper are the same skills that will make your English better in general. For example, paraphrasing (Part 3) is a very useful skill in writing and speaking. It helps us to avoid repetition and is helpful when we need to correct ourselves.
The Use of English paper gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and use of the English language by completing a number of tasks. The paper takes 1 hour 15 minutes. There are five parts and 65 questions.
Overview of the FCE Use of English paper
Here is a brief overview of the different tasks you will find in the paper:
Part Task type and format Task focus Number of questions 1 You are given a text with 15 gaps. For each gap, you choose the correct word from four options. An emphasis on vocabulary 15 2 You are given a text with 15 gaps. For each gap, you must supply the correct word. Grammar and vocabulary 15 3 You are given a series of sentences. You must re-phrase each sentence to include a key word that you are given. Grammar and vocabulary 10 4 You are given a text containing errors. You must identify these errors. An emphasis on grammar 15 5 You are given a text with 10 gaps. For each gap you must complete the missing word. You are given the stem of this word to help you. Vocabulary 10
In preparing for the Use of English paper, you should try to learn whole phrases, rather than just individual words. Knowing grammatical patterns and context is just as important as knowing the meaning in many of the tasks in the paper. This is equally important in real life!
All the texts in the paper have a title. You can make use of the title by thinking about what it suggests to you. In this way you can try to predict what you are going to read, which will help you to understand the text.
Part 1
In this part you are given a short text. This text has fifteen missing words. For each gap, you must choose the word which best fits the gap from the four options given. The main focus of this task is vocabulary. However, in some cases knowing the meaning will not be sufficient; you will also need to choose the word that fits in with the grammar of the sentence.
Part 2
Part 2 is a text containing fifteen gaps. A single word is needed to fill each gap. This part focuses on grammar and vocabulary and tests your knowledge of, for example, verb tenses, infinitives, -ing forms, pronouns and prepositions. There may be more than one correct word for a gap, but you only need to give one word. It does not matter if you do not use capital letters (or if you use them incorrectly) but you must spell the words correctly.
Learning words and expressions will help you in this part of the paper.
Part 3
Part 3 contains ten key word transformations. For each question you are given a prompt sentence, followed by a response sentence which has a gap. You must fill this gap with between two and five words. One of these words must be the key word which is given to you. This word must not be changed. Areas being tested in Part 3 include reported speech, passives and verb tenses. This part tests your knowledge of the language, but practice of transformations also helps you to develop the skill of expressing your ideas in a different way.
Part 4
In Part 4 you must decide if the fifteen lines of a text contain a wrong word or not. Most lines contain errors and they are the sort of errors that learners at your level are likely to make in writing, such as incorrect auxiliary verbs, prepositions, pronouns and articles. The text looks like something that a student at FCE level might write.
You can help to prepare yourself for this part by correcting your own (or your classmates’) written work. This will help you to improve your accuracy when writing.
Part 5
Part 5 is a word-building task, based on a text with ten gaps. A single word is needed to fill each gap. The stems of the missing words are given next to the text and must be transformed to provide the missing word. You will need to show that you know the various ways in which words can be formed in English, including the addition of affixes (e.g. friendship), compounding (e.g. timetable) and internal change (e.g. long > length).
