cae review phrases

Tips to increase your grade It is highly recommendable to use extreme adjectives in your writing and avoid the use of normal adjectives like nice, good, bad. Make sure you understand gradable and ungradable adjectives to be sure of reaching the C1 level on the Cambridge assessment rubric.

Useful phrases:

It is highly recommendable to have a set template for each type of text before the day of the exam to make sure you meet the correct standard. Try learning some of these phrases to include in your template.

Making recommendations:

Expressing enthusiasm:

Expressing surprise:

Speculating:

Preferences: I prefer (…ing), I like ___ more than…

HOW IS THE EXAM CORRECTED?

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Evaluation scale:

All Cambridge exams are marked in the same way but the evaluation scales leave some room for interpretation and are, therefore, a little subjective. Examiners mark tasks using assessment scales that were developed with explicit reference to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The scales, which are used across the spectrum of the Cambridge English General and Business English Writing tests, consist of four sub-scales : Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation, and Language:

Organisation focuses on the way the candidate puts together the piece of writing, in other words if it is logical and ordered . THE TEXT MUST BE EASY TO FOLLOW BUT ALSO INCLUDE COMPLEX GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES AND VOCABULARY. DO NOT OVER COMPLICATE THE TEXT! THE USE OF ADEQUATE COHESIVE DEVICES IS ESSENTIAL.

Responses are marked on each sub-scale from 0 to 5.

When marking the tasks, examiners take into account length of responses and varieties of English:

Guidelines on length are provided for each task; responses which are too short may not have an adequate range of language and may not provide all the information that is required, while responses which are too long may contain irrelevant content and have a negative effect on the reader. These may affect candidates’ marks on the relevant sub-scales.

General advice for improving writing skills:

COPY. You should read example questions and answers to make sure that you know the level required to pass the exam. DON´T COPY ENTIRE TEXTS BUT TAKE PHRASES AND GRAMMATICAL FEATURES FROM THESE EXAMPLES AND USE THEM.

USE YOUR FAVOURITE PHRASES . You should have a bank of vocabulary and fixed expressions that you like to use frequently. YOU SHOULD KNOW YOUR FAVOURITE EXPRESSIONS BY HEART AND BE VERY CONFIDENT IN HOW TO USE THEM IN VARIOUS CONTEXTS!

[…] C1 WRITING – WRITING A REVIEW FOR THE CAE EXAM […]

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Cambridge C1 Advanced (CAE): How to Write a Review

Introduction.

A review may be about a book, magazine, film, play or concert; it may also be about a product or a service. A review in the C1 Advanced Writing paper does not merely ask for a general description of the thing reviewed, but requires an evaluation of its suitability for a particular purpose or audience. The target reader is specified in the task, and candidates should be encouraged to use this information when choosing appropriate ideas and language to include in their response. from: Cambridge English First Handbook for Teachers

In the C1 Advanced Writing exam there are two parts. Part 1 always requires you to write an essay while in Part 2 you can choose from different text types. Apart from reviews, you can also decide to pick a proposal , a report or an email/letter .

Reviews are fun!

Reviews are fun because reading reviews is fun. Who doesn’t enjoy a few opinions from other people before making the decision on which restaurant to go to, which film to watch or which book to buy? Also, in our day and age, we are constantly looking at social proof for a wide range of topics so reviews are much more natural to us than they were only a few years ago when the internet wasn’t everywhere so you might even have written about a few of your own experiences online.

We are going to look at different aspects of review writing, from looking at a typical task and its structure, useful language and mistakes to avoid. If you are interested, keep reading.

>>> Find out how your C1 Advanced writing is marked. <<<

What a typical review task looks like

Speaking from my experience as a teacher and preparing numerous students for the exam, I can say that most review tasks look pretty much the same. The structure is very very similar and once you know what to look for, you can use it to your advantage by saving a lot of time and going into the test ready and calm.

To find the answers to these three questions read the task very carefully and underline the key information.

This structure is usually the same in every task so make sure that you look for the same type of information whenever you sit down to practise reviews.

How to organise your review

Now that we know what the task’s topic is, what exactly we need to include and the tone we should write in, it is time to look at the structure of a review. Luckily, this can be repeated from review to review and you simply have to change the content depending on the topic and main points.

Remember, there are two main questions for you to answer here (Did you learn anything new about the person’s life? Did the book or film help you understand why this person made their important contribution?) It makes a lot of sense to give each of those questions their own paragraph as they talk about different aspects of your review.

Always plan your review

A plan can be very short and only include a few keywords that you add under each heading so you know what you want to write about and don’t have to rethink everything halfway through the writing task.

The different parts of a review

After looking at how to analyse a task as well as organise and plan your review, it is time to get into actually writing it. We are still going to work on our example task and, of course, you might have to adjust your language and content for different topics, but you should get a good idea of what is expected from you when writing a review for C1 Advanced.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom – a review Have you ever been so passionate about something that you would sacrifice your very best years for it? Would you even put it ahead of your family and friends? In the film Mandela: Lond Walk to Freedom we get not only a glimpse of Nelson Mandela’s life, but rather dive deep into who he was and how he changed a whole country.

I gave my review a title, which doesn’t have to be fancy, and in the introduction I didn’t do anything crazy either. It starts with a couple of questions to generate interest and I don’t give away too much of the storyline. Obviously, a lot of people know something about Nelson Mandela’s life, but that’s not the point. Give the reader just a tiny little taste so they want more and keep reading.

You also want to make sure that you keep the reader’s attention which you have carefully caught in the introduction. Treat it like something very valuable that you don’t want to lose again until the end of your review.

While the whole film captivated me throughout, there was one aspect that truly stood out to me. Nelson Mandela and his second wife Winnie had a one-of-a-kind relationship driving each other to continue and grow the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa even after Mr Mandela was captured and imprisoned . It is a testament to their dedication and partnership and something that a lot of us can learn from. Despite having a strong and driven partner in his wife, I still used to be astonished by the fact that someone would simply sacrifice themselves and give up a big part of their life to help others, but this biopic made me reconsider. Witnessing a segregated society and all the racial abuse the black community had to endure during apartheid, there was no other option for Nelson Mandela than to stand up and fight for equality .

Conclusion/Recommendation

To finish your review you need a conclusion in which you summarise what you’ve written up to this point and make a recommendation to the reader. After all, that’s why we read reviews in the first place – we want someone to tell us about a product or an experience and see if they would recommend it or not.

All in all, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom gives some incredible insight into the life of one of the world’s most famous and influential personalities of the 20th century. It would be a shame not to watch it so I highly recommend that you check your favourite streaming service or buy the film as soon as you can and I promise you won’t regret it.