Международнфй экзамен по английскому языку Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE)

Что такое САЕ? 

 

Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) - экзамен по английскому языку, разработанный и проводящийся Кембриджским университетом и удостоверяющий владение английским языком на продвинутом уровне.

САЕ представляет собой четвертую (предпоследнюю) ступень в Кембриджской системе экзаменов на знание общего английского языка (KET, PET, FCE, CAE, CPE).  Данная система является мировым лидером в области сертификации по английскому языку. Каждый год более четырех миллионов людей сдают Кембриджские экзамены в 130 странах мира.

Экзамен соответствует уровню владения C1 Шкалы Совета Европы.

Для чего сдавать  САЕ? / Кому нужен сертификат о сдаче САЕ?

Сертификат о сдаче САЕ необходим вам если вы хотите:

-  поступить в университет или колледж за рубежом;
- работать в зарубежной или международной компании;
- улучшить перспективы дальнейшего карьерного роста в своей стране;
- объективно оценить свой уровень владения английским языком;
- получить опыт использования английского языка в контексте работы, учебы и отдыха. 

Результатам Кембриджских экзаменов доверяют тысячи официальных организаций, университетов и работодателей по всему миру, включая университеты и колледжи Великобритании, США, Австралии и Европы. Более подробную информацию о том, какие организации признают результаты Кембриджских экзаменов, можно найти на сайте Cambridge ESOL

Структура экзамена САЕ / Из чего состоит экзамен САЕ?

 

Обновленная версия экзамена с января 2015 г. состоит из четырех частей (papers): Чтение и Владение языком (Reading and Use of English),  Письмо (Writing),  Говорение (Speaking) и Аудирование  (Listening). Каждая часть включает в себя несколько заданий, направленных на определение уровня владения данным умением.

Более подробную информацию об структуре каждой части можно прочитать здесь.

CAE: Step-by-Step Guide to Exam Preparation

 Do you know exactly what you have to do to prepare for the CAE exam? Will doing the sample tests one by one be enough? Or may be you could just follow a coursebook and do all the suggested tasks? 
Below I will give a step-by-step guide of what you have to focus your attention on while preparing for CAE.





Step I. Enlarge your vocabulary with advanced collocations. This will help you kill several birds with one stone:
- get a good point for lexical resourse  both in Speaking and Writing papers;
- increase your chances of succeeding in parts 1 and 4 of Reading and Use of English paper as one of the things they check is knowledge of collocations.

Learning phrasal verbs and idioms is also a good idea, but the main focus has to be on collocations.

Existing coursebooks for CAE preparation, as good as they are, do not pay enough attention to vocabulary expansion (possibly, on the assumption that candidates have already achieved good results in this sphere when they start preparing for the exam), which is why I advise using materials from books like English Collocations in Use Advanced, Oxford Word Skills etc.

Step II. Learn to make a good use of advanced grammatical structures like cleft sentences, participial clauses, relative clauses, sentences with inversion etc. Be sure you can make complex sentences with various relations between their parts and use them as often as simple sentences in both speaking and writing.
This will:
-  give you good points for grammatical resource in Writing and Speaking;
- improve your score in part 4 of Reading and Use of English.

The coursebooks like  Gold Advanced, Complete CAE etc. cover the most advanced features of grammar and suggest tasks for practising them. However, if you are not sure you can use all the tenses accurately enough, have some problems with expressing different relations between parts of a complex sentence or just need more practice you will need to use some good grammar books, among which my favourites are Longman Advanced Learner Grammar and English Grammar in Use Advanced.

Step III. With regard to the Speaking test, apart from learning advanced collacations and grammatical structures it's necessary to do the following:

a)  learn and practise functional vocabulary in accordance with each part of the paper:
- vocabulary for speculating and comparing for part 2,
- vocabulary for conducting a discussion (moving from one point to another, asking your partner's opinion, agreeing and disagreeing etc) for part 3;
- expressing opinion and supporting it with reasons and examples for part 4.

b) learn to use fillers instead of hesitation pauses when you need time to think over the question. Some of the most common fillers are: well, let me think, you know, what else? etc.
Another way of giving yourself some time for thinking is to comment on the question (That's a difficult one. I've never thought of this before. etc) or repeat the question changing the pronouns. (What do I like most about ...)

c) practise doing the exam format tasks with the time limit and focusing on the questions you are given.

Step IV. Getting ready for the Writing paper requires doing the following:

a) learn the conventions of each of the five tasks that you can be given:
- essay
- proposal
- report
- review
- letter (formal and informal)

b)  practise writing in formal and informal style

c) learn useful expressions for each paper

d) learn to link your ideas effectively which will be needed in every task.

c) practise doing writing tasks with the time limit. Keep in mind that you will only be given an hour and a half for both tasks that makes about 45 minutes for each of them.

d) do not forget about using advanced vocabulary and grammar.

Step V. In order to prepare for the Listening task do the following:

a) Take pains to increase your exposure to spoken English in natural context, instead of relying solely on listening tasks in coursebooks. Be sure you listen to people speaking with various accents and on various topics. Whatever is to your taste everything will do for this purpose: listening to the radio or podcasts, watching movies or serials, communicating with native speakers etc.

b) do the exam format tasks, with the use of techniques that will allow you to maximize your chances of being successful


Step VI. The Reading and Use of English paper may seem the easiest, however it does require  a lot of preparation: 

a) learn collocations, set expressions, phrasal verbs and similar words with shades of meaning for part 1
b) learn linking words and set expressions for part 2

c) learn word formation for part 3

d) learn advanced grammatical structures and phrasal verbs for part 4

e) practise exam format reading tasks, using special techniques (like highlighting key-words) that can help you do the tasks successfully and within the time limit.

Engish Future Forms: Round-Up

Here is a round up of how future actions can be expressed in English. There are five ways of talking about predictions, two options for intentions, three for arrangements and some other future meanings such as statements of fact, promises, hopes, warnings, timetables and so on.

Use	Form	Example
PREDICTION
predictions based on guesswork, analysis and judgement	Future Simple	He probably won’t be in prison for a long time. The war will definitely be over next month.
prediction with present evidence	be going to	Look at those clouds. It’s going to rain.
prediction of an action in progress	Future Continuous	This time tomorrow we’ll be sitting  in a cafe.
prediction of an action completed by a point in the future	Future Perfect	I’ll have finished the report by 3.30
prediction of an action still ongoing at a point in the future	Future Perfect Continuous	She’ll have been working here  for 25 years next month.
INTENTION
on-the-spot decision	Future Simple	Did you call Peet? I forgot! I’ll do it now.
intention	be going to	They are going to travel together.
ARRANGEMENTS
Arranged events	Present Continuous	We are seeing a musical at the theatre next week.
Events arranged in the past	Future Continuous	We’ll be coming back from London on Sunday
Tactful queries / reasons for rejections	Future Continuous	Will you be eating with us? Sorry, I can’t I will be studying.
OTHER FUTURE MEANINGS
Timetable future	Present Simple	The train arrives at 5.55 pm
Routine events	Future Continuous	We’ll be having our weekly meeting tomorrow. So I’ll present your report.
Statements of fact /	Future Simple	Next week I’ll be 21.
Promises / Hopes	Future Simple	I’ll call you as soon as I get to the hotel. I hope you’ll be OK.
Warnings / Threats	Future Simple	If you don’t revise, you’ll fail your exam. If you fail the exam, you’ll be punished.
Requests / Offers	Future Simple	Will you give me a hand with this? You look tired. I’ll help you with this.
In time clauses	Present Simple	He’ll stay until you get here.
FUTURE EXPRESSIONS
official arrangements	be to	The President is to hold an official reception for the visitors.
timetables	be due to	The train is due to arrive at 5.30, but it may be delayed.
immediate future	be about to be on the point / verge of	Come on! The check-in desk is just about to close.
probability / certainty	be (un)likely to be sure / bound / certain to	The payment is likely to take ten days.

Source:
1. M Foley, D. Hall. Advanced Learner's Grammar. Pearson Education Limited.

CAE Writing: Grammatical Structures to Use

One of  the four criteria on which your CAE writing papers are going to be assessed is Language. Not only does it evaluate how accurate you are (that is if there are any mistakes in the texts) but also, and it's even more important, how wide the range of  your vocabulary and grammar is. Accuracy and vocabulary range are topics for further posts. What I am going to talk about today is how you can be successful in showing a rich enough range of grammatical structures in your CAE writing papers.

Having studied loads of materials for CAE preparation including such coursebooks as CAE Gold, CAE Objective, Complete CAE and CAE Result, I can say that there is a certain number of grammatical structures which are considered to be sophisticated enough for the advanced level writing. What it means is that you are very likely to get a high score for your range of grammar if you make a good use of these structure.

Here they are

1. Emphasis with Inversion

This is when we use inverted word order  AUXILIARY VERB + SUBJECT (generally characteristic of questions) in affirmative sentences to make them sound more emphatic.

You can use inversion after certain 'negative' expression at the beginning of the sentence:
- never / rarely / seldom / never before /
- not until /  not since / not for one minute / not even once / at no time
- on no account / under no circumstances/ in no way / on no occasion
- only when / only if / only in this way / only then / only after
- little
- not only ... but also
- scarcely / hardly / barely ...when
- no sooner ....than

Here are some example sentences with the inversion:
Never before had I seen such a professional performance.
Not until it was too late did they see the sign.
Under no circumstances should you let children play with fire.
Little did he realise that he was being watched.
Scarcely had she got home when the phone rang.

You can also use inversion in conditional sentences, which is very common in formal pieces of writing such as a letter of complaint or apology. What we do is omit 'if' and change the places of the subject and the predicate.

Should  I receive no satisfaction, I will be forced to take matters a step further.
Had he known, he would have made arrangements. 

You can find a good presentation on Inversion here

2. Cleft Sentences

This is certain structures that help us emphasise a particular part of a sentence.

- IT IS / WAS + SUBJECT / OBJECT + [THAT / WHO ...]
It is the principal who is responsible for the school budget.
It is for the school budget that the principal is responsible.

- WHAT + SUBJECT + VERB + INFINITIVE

What we need is to address the road congestion issue.

- ALL / THE LAST THING + SUBJECT + VERB + IS / WAS

The last thing people want is encroaching on the suburbs.

3. Participial Clauses

They may be used for the following reasons:

- to link two events in time
- to provide a reason
- instead of a conditional construction.

Opening the door, I saw ... (= when I opened the door...)
Being the richest of us, she paid the bill (= because she was the richest...)
Eaten in small quantities, chocolate is good for our health (= if you eat it in small quantities...)

4. Relative Clauses

Be sure you know how to use both identifying and non-identifying relative clauses.

The person to whom the letter is addressed lives is Moscow.
The roads in the inner city are heavily congested, which is why it may take hours to get to your workplace.

5. Comparative Structures (Double Comparatives / All the More)

The more absurd it appeared, the more appealing it became. 
The lack of any programme for changing the industry is all the more striking given the obstacles that the likes of John Davis persistently put in their way.

CAE Reading and Use of English: Tasks Overview

The correct answers in the form above are: 2, 4, 3, 1.

CAE 2015: Speaking : Part II

Part II of the CAE speaking test is an individual "long turn" for each candidate with a brief response from the other candidate. In turn, each candidate is given a set of three pictures (together with two written prompts in the form of direct questions) and has to talk about two of the pictures for a minute. After this, their partner will be asked a question related to the task as well. 

The part lasts  4 minutes in total: 1 minute for each candidate's individual speaking plus 30 seconds for the second candidate's response. 

The focus is on organising a larger unit of discourse: comparing, describing, expressing opinions and speculating. 

 In this speaking task it is not enough to merely describe what you see in the pictures. The candidates are supposed to compare two of the pictures, express their opinion and, most importantly, speculate. That's why it's essential to learn speculative vocabulary (may, might, must, could, might have, probably etc.) and practise guessing more than you see in the pictures.

The following questions might be useful to answer when workin with pictures.

- Who do you think the people in the pictures are? What are their relationships?

- What might they be talking about?

- What do you think could have happened just before the scene? Why?

- What do you think might happen next? Why?

The other thing which is absolutely vital for the task is organising and linking ideas. You will need to learn and practise a wide range of linking words and cohesive devices that help you move from one idea to the next one. 

Note: don't overestimate formal linkers which are more suitable for writing. Make a good use of simple linking words that sound natural in speaking.

 

Advanced English Games: Academy Island (CEFR Level: B1–C1)