10 best practices for tackling English language exams

10 best practices for tackling English language exams - Illustration by Tang Yau HoongSummer might be the season for taking time off work, but for many English language students it’s also the time of year to sign up for an exam and work towards passing it. Whichever exam you’ll be taking, be it PTEFCE, CAE, CPE or IELTS or another, we are here with some advice that will help you prepare. Here, then, are our 10 best practices for tackling English language exams.

1. Avoid learning language in isolation

If grammar is the skeleton of the language, then vocabulary is the meat (and we might say idiomatic language the blood). Of course, you can’t have one without the other. When learning new words, make sure you learn the grammatical constructions that go with them (e.g., dependent prepositions, whether verbs are followed by a gerund or the infinitive, and so on). When learning grammar, make sure you personalise and contextualise it with lots of examples. Familiarise yourself with collocations and learn language in chunks. Continue reading

Top tips for passing the FCE (First Certificate in English)

If you’re planning to take the Cambridge First Certificate in English, it’s not only your level of English that’s important. Understanding the exam itself and knowing how to tackle each of the papers is crucial for success. Below are our top tips for passing the FCE. For a thorough course of exam preparation, look no further than our special MyEnglishLab Cambridge First. Continue reading