Anonymous:

I've been studying for CPE (Cambridge Proficiency) for an year and a half in a row, I don't
think I'm prepare, I've done lots of mocks and just got Cs and Ds... I was wondering if you
could give some tips...

On the other hand, is it that important? Sometimes I wonder what it really proves...
I'm from Brasil and I don't have access to english speaking people, of course, just through
internet...
Thks...
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credoquaabsurdum:
Get a private teacher!
Barring that fantastic tip, what do you really need help in?

I bet the following are a problem:
Writing - because you have no input on your correction issues. Speaking - same reason
Use of English, Gapped Sentences and (horrors!) Summary Reading, Gapped Text
Listening, Part 4 (He Said, She Said)
Have I missed anything?
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Raf:
Definitely: Reading, Gapped Text and Use of English, Gapped Sentences...
The other topics I do fine... but on these ones I can't get even the half of them...
On Reading, (Gaped text) very often the words I'm supposed to choose are completelly
unknown to me, and when I know the words they seem too familiar and I don't know which
one to choose...
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credoquaabsurdum:
We'll take this in order, Gapped Text, and then Gapped Sentences. This will be a rather
long post. We'll do this in parts, because if I write the whole thing in one night, I'll get
bored, toss it, and you'll never see it.
Here goes.
Gapped Text, as many experts freely admit, is difficult for anyone, even a native speaker.
There is a bit of controversy on the best way to have students approach this part of the test,
but after working it for years, this is what I have come up with.
We need to teach students WHAT TO LOOK FOR (that is to say, to find the kinds of clues
that Cambridge leaves behind).
We need to teach students HOW TO LOOK FOR THEM (that is to say, a standard strategy
to use over and over again when we do Gapped Text. With practice, the strategy becomes
second nature and the student's accuracy soars.

There are three different basic sets of principles that you need to keep in mind as you do
Gapped Text.
1 SENTENCE LEVEL/DISCOURSE LEVEL CLUES

Whenever you do Gapped Text, you ought to have a pencil in your hand. That pencil
should be used to circle clues you find in the text. Cambridge leaves many of them in the
text in order to make your life easier. What are they? Well, obvious ones are pronouns that
must be linked to antecedents mentioned earlier. Conjunctions are used to suggest contrast,
add emphasis, provide more proof...and then there are clues that just have to do with
common sense.
Here's an excellent example, taken from Cambridge ESOL 3 Past Papers (C.U.P.). You
probably own this book and if you don't, you should but it. The fourth one has come out,
but I haven't looked at it yet.

I'm looking at pages 10 and 11
29 (the gap)

I had little to impress him with in return, other than instant praside for his music...
STOP!!! Who is "him"? "In return" for WHAT??? These ar obvious textual clues. Circle
these statements and make notes in the gaps between the paragraphs. Those notes are to aid
your memory as you go through the text.
Let's try this with another gap...
31
But in the meantime, I felt I had nothing to lose by seeing Andrew again.
WHOA!!! In the meantime...of what??? What was happening?

33
I set to work with enormous enthusiasm...
SET TO WORK ON WHAT??? This question should be written on the box above.
You can also find such clues in gapped paragraphs (A-H).

A
And even if the two of us failed to challenge the top musical composers successfully...
(This implies that, in one way or another, they would challenge SOME composers, at least.)
G
On the other hand...
(What's the contrast.?)
Occasionally, a clue like this comes at the ends of the gapped text and the gapped
paragraphs.
28 Gap, paragraph...I could tell that he was good. Very good.
(Usually, after something like this, a general statement, we have an example.)
2 TEXTUAL ORGANIZATION

There are three, count them, three ways that written texts on CPE are structured. More than
one way may appear in each gapped text.

The first is NARRATI VE, which is by far the most common. The structure of narrative has
been set in stone since at least Aristotle, who identified that stories typically begin with a
problem, which develops into a series of complications, which crescendos to a climax, and
finally, we have some sort of aftermath, where the writer lets us down.

Look for this structure. If you have to deal with an extract of a novel, and one of the gapped
paragraphs mentions something like "she screamed" then that will normally go in
somewhere around Gap 31,
32...that sort of thing...not the immediate beginning and end.

The second is ARGUMENT, by far the most difficult text type. Arguements depend on two
things, linking words/discourse markers (On the other hand, If this were really true,
However,) and contrasting logic. You must become sensitive to these, as Cambridge
absolutely loves to stick an argument halfway through a narrative.
The last kind of writing you will have to deal with in a Cambridge Gapped Text is NEWS.
When information is provided to you, the reader. Typically speaking, when a writers wants
to give you information, they go from the more general items in that information to more
specific. In journalistic writing, the structure of a news article looks like an inverted
pyramid...there is a lot of information in the first sentence, and that gradually tapers off into
more specific bits.

Here's an example from the front page of the EL Gazette, March 2005.

Title: Greek police to take exam paper trail
The Public prosecutor in Greece is investigating a security breach doring the December
session of the Cambridge Esol (sic) examinations in the country.
(That's you first paragraph, and it tell you everything. Now, the story segues into a brief
narrative.)
At 9.20 a.m. on 5 December Antenna (sic), a major national Greek television channel,
broadcast that it has been faxed pages from the CPE question papers. The questions were
receuved 14 minutes after the candidates had entered the exam room that morning.
Photocopies of the same pages had been posted by express delivery to several news sources
on 3 December.
(That gives you the explanation of what the security breach was. And now, the official
response from Cambridge ESOL.)
According to a press statement from University of Cambridge Esol (sic) Examinations,
'There is no reason to believe that the theft of this material a consequence of the expanstion
of the network of authorised centres in Greece.'
(That was rather important information. The article goes on from there...I'll quote more of it
in my next series of clues.)

The main thing to remember is that information goes from GENERAL to SPECIFIC when
it is provided in newspaper in order to inform you. News texts are not structured like this
example:
(Paragraph 1)
Farmer Tom had this to say about the missing pigs, "It ain't right. Them darned rascals done
took all the pigs. Sweet Jesus, couldn't they have left me just one?" His neighbor and
minority shareholder of their common sty, Farmer Doug, was standing right next to the
victim as he said this and grunted in agreement. This reporter watched as the two men,
shattered under the economic burden of coping with the loss of their livestock, walked
heavily to the coop to take stock of their chickens.
(Paragraph 2)
An increase in incidents of livestock-snatching has been reported in Chemung County
during the last financial quarter. Small farmers on Old Ithaca Road have been reporting
wholesale thefts of their barnyard animals in increasing numbers during the last three
months. Authorities suspect that a professional gang is operating in the area and urges all
concerned citizens with information on the group, which has been , this reporter has
learned, dubbed the "Meat-Grabbers" by the police.

Paragraph 2 MUST come before Paragraph 1 in such a gapped text.
3 BACKGROUND VERSUS NARRATIVE

Let's go back to our EL Gazette example:
Greek police to take exam paper trail
The Public prosecutor in Greece is investigating a security breach doring the December
session of the Cambridge Esol (sic) examinations in the country.
At 9.20 a.m. on 5 December Antenna (sic), a major national Greek television channel,
broadcast that it has been faxed pages from the CPE question papers. The questions were
receuved 14 minutes after the candidates had entered the exam room that morning.
Photocopies of the same pages had been posted by express delivery to several news sources
on 3 December.
According to a press statement from University of Cambridge Esol (sic) Examinations,
'There is no reason to believe that the theft of this material a consequence of the expanstion
of the network of authorised centres in Greece.'
(And now, here's the next paragraph.)
Cambridge Esol (sic) have been operating in Greece for over half a century, and play a
significant role in both private and public ELT sectors. The British Council previously
acted as the sole examination administrator, but last June Cambridge piloted a new internal
examination centre. In December fourteen internal centres plus an additional open centre
tested students across the country. Additional checks will take place during the CPE
marking process, including additional statistical analysis across the exam papers to study
the performance of candidates from individual schools.

(This last paragraph has nothing, really, to do with the story. It is there to give you
BACKGROUND information to the narrative.)

The way I always teach this is to turn off the lights and say, in a low voice:
"The lion crept in the darkness that overlay the floor of the jungle, a coiled spring of power
and grace in the shadows. Suddenly, it tensed, then silently sprang at the object hanging
from the tree. A flashbulb exploded, causing the lion to look up and hiss its hatred!

(Turn the light on.)
The photo safari had been organized in Cambridge three weeks previously by Dr. Hector E.
Bananaman, noted South African anthropologist. In taking pictures of lions springing after
prey, Dr. Banaman hopes to uncover in human psychology exactly what, in early human
history, caused us to learn to think of the lion as the "king of beasts." His theory is that we
learned to mimic lions in their instinctively organized hunting patterns, and thus, as
organization is the primary source of our claim to being the most developed species on the
planet, our attitude toward the lion reflects in us a very basic understanding that the species,
in truth, taught us to be human.

(Turn the light off.)
Little of this mattered to Leo. As soon as the flashbulb's glare died away, he turned back to
the joint of meat lying on the ground. Once, twice, thee times he ripped into it, the jaws
chewing and salivating as they sampled the fresh beef on offer. Then, in a whirl of fur and
with a savage hiss, he disappeared into the gloom, taking the savaged meat with him to feed
his hungry mate and cubs.
The second paragraph is filled with BACKGROUND information, interspersed in the
narrative. Generally speaking, if you see a gap in a part of the text that you have identified
as narrative and you can read the text from one paragraph to the next with a minimal break
of cohesion, you can expect to find background information filling that hap.
I'll pick up next time where I left off here. Once again, this was WHAT TO LOOK FOR.
Next time, I'll give you the strategy I teach all my students.
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Raf:
Thanks a million!!
I'm looking forward to seeing the next part of your teaching...
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credoquaabsurdum:
[nq:1]Thanks a million!! I'm looking forward to seeing the next part of your teaching...[/nq]
Gapped Text, Part 2 - HOW TO DO IT!
So now that we know what to look for to link paragraphs together, we have our strategy for
gapped text. Before we get into it, we need to look at some of the basic problems that have
to do with this part of the test.
Students, according to Cambridge ESOL, tend to get either all or none of the marks
available in this section. Consequently, the candidate needs to avoid, at all costs, an all-or-
nothing mentality. What exactly does this mean?
All-or-nothing-thinking, as the term implies, leads YOU, the test-taker to believing that it is
indeed possible to get ALL of the answers right. The two main symptoms of this kind of
thinking are: changing your answers once you choose them, and spending too much time on
this part of Reading.
Think about it! There are four parts to Reading that have to get done in exactly 90 minutes.
Pt1, 18 marks, Pt2, 16 marks (2 for each question), Pt3, 14 marks, and Pt4, 14 marks.14
marks out of 76 means that Part 3 is worth about 18% of the marksavailable on the Reading
Paper. That means that logically, Part 3 is worth 18% of your time, which is about 16
minutes. Because Pt1 (Lexical Close) finishes quickly, Pt2 (Short Texts) looks deceptively
simple, and most students learn how to do Pt4 (Long Text) in one pass, many students do
not understand that they cannot afford to spend upwards of sixty minutes on Pt3!
Consistently, in doing Past Papers, I have seen my weaker students desperately strive to get
all they can out of Gapped Text because the vocabulary is supposed to be pitched at a lower
level, which gives weaker students a false sense of confidence in their ability to grasp the
meaning of the text in a fuller way than what they can do on the other Parts.
My logic goes like this: you WILL finish Pt1 faster than you will the other parts of the test,
so you CAN take time away from that Part and give it to Part 3 without losing marks. You
can also, if you're careful, take time away from Part 2 without losing marks. You should
not, not, not take away time from Part 4. All in all, however, if you have done your work,
you need a strategy that will get you through Gapped Text in about 30 minutes.
Second, a very stupid mistake that students make when studying along for the test is to time
themselves immediately from the start. With Gapped Text, technique comes first, and then
speed. Allow yourself as much time as necessary the first few times you do this following
the right technique, and gradually, you will find yourself picking up speed automatically.
Only at the end of your preparation should you actually begin pushing for 30 minutes.
Next, fake tests, when it comes to examinations assembled in as complex a way as the
Cambridge examinations, are usually worthless. Tests prepared by experts who have
participated in the revision process are likewise garbage, however, which many students
don't realize. Cambridge 3 and 4 are the only two books of Past Papers that have come out
of CUP that reflect what has really been on the test, because they ARE what was really on
the test, If you need more materials, you can buy Past Paper Packs at
www.cambridgesol.com. Do not trust your preparations to poorly written fake tests.
You can give yourself a running start! The CAE also incorporates a gapped text, and while
many of the topics on the CAE and CPE are not the same, many of the same kinds of texts
appear in both tests. Refine your technique on the CAE gapped texts before you go hunting
for big game.
What seems to be the most obvious strategy to get through Gapped Text is one which, on
examination, ranks among the worst. Students read the text on the left and then read the
first answer choice. Then, they ask themselves where it goes. After making their choice, on
they go to answer choice 2, and so on. Some books written by people who have no business
writing test-prep books actually encourage students to do this. Most native-speaker teachers
without significant experience in test prep also advocate this approach in Part 3. If you ever
have a teacher who tells you that this is how to do Gapped Text and that he has significant
experience helping students pass the test, well, YOUR TEACHER IS A LIAR AND A
FOOL, as are, unfortunately, most ELTs.

This approach is STUPID, it is RIDICULOUS, and you should NOT DO THIS.

Gapped Text takes more out of you than any other part: students universally find this to be
the most stressful part of Reading and many feel it is more difficult than Summary (which I
feel is more difficult than Gapped Text). I think it is because you have to work without a
net, as it were, through seven gaps and fourteen marks, knowing that one answer depends
on all the others. This kind of mental exercise tires you out more than when you know the
probability that you will get each question right...25% in a four-option multiple choice
question, for example.
And finally, the biggest problem that faces students who do the test is an inability to take
clear notes. From what I understand, no country in the world systematically attempts to
teach its students to be good note-takers, but Greeks are notoriously poor at the exercise,
and so lose even more parks needlessly in the section of the test. I cannot count the Gapped
Texts I've looked at that had not a word circled on them or a penciled remark written in.
You can lead a horse to water, as it is said, but you can't make him drink. You have been
warned.

The strategy I force my students to use is remarkably effective. It goes like this.
STEP 1: READ AND TAKE NOTES!
Read the instruction! Read the title! Then, read the left page of the gapped text, the part
with the gaps in it. Stop there!

As you read the page CAREFULLY, circle clues in the text and take notes in the margins
and in the gaps. For instance, if you see that the first word of a new paragraph after a blank
is "He," you should circle that word and write "Who is HE?" in the gap above. The notes
may seem simple but they work remarkably well in directing your eyes toward the more
important information in the text as the clock winds down. When you don't circle, when
you don't write, you lose valuable time rereading for clues that you know are there but were
too stupid to highlight or otherwise mark the first time you went through the text. You will
pay for your stupidity on CPE day.
STEP 2: Let's play...BET YOUR PROFICIENCY!!!
Having carefully read the text on the left, PICK THE GAP THAT YOU BELIEVE IS
EASIET. Perhaps you feel that one is easy because there are a number of clues in the
paragraph immediately after it, or there is an particularly easy clue, like a result clause with
a pronoun in it.

For instance... (Gap) "So he said that we should not do that..."

"So..." indicates a reason was stated earlier. Who is "he?" What is "that?" That's a strong
series of clues.
Example 2: (Gap) "An action more fraught with peril was difficult to imagine! James
shivered at the thought."
Clearly, what was discussed in the previous paragraph was "an action fraught with peril."
Either way, pick the easiest gap and then GO AFTER YOUR ANSWER!!! Start reading
the eight paragraphs (A-H).
As you read each paragraph, ask yourself if it is what you are looking for. If the answer is
NO, move on to the next one. If the answer is YES, finish reading all of them. By using this
strategy, you'll read all the answer choices in an active manner, which will guarantee that
you will stay focused.
You will be tempted to stop and grab at a paragraph that fits into another gap perfectly. DO
NOT DO THIS, no matter how tempting it seems! You are looking for YOUR answer to
YOUR gap. Do not be distracted by an answer you are absolutely sure is right for another
gap. One gap at a time, sweet Jesus!
Let's say you find your answer. You're positive. Before you pencil it in, write a "1" next to
the blank. Think hard about what you're doing. Would you be willing to bet your
Proficiency on that answer?
For many students, that's exactly what putting down this first answer means...that's how
important those 14 marks in Reading might be. If the answer is "yes" mark it down, cross
out the answer choice on the right, and move on to another blank.
If the answer is "no," abandon that blank. Find the one that you believed was the next
easiest one and go after your answer.

Points to keep in mind: If you screw up on that first gap, my experience tells me that you
will not, almost unfailingly, be able to get more than two of the seven gaps. If you get
sidetracked on the first gap and go hunting after another answer, well, you might as well lie
down with your butt invitingly high in the air, waiting for a proper Cambridge...spanking.
Remember, you are playing BET YOUR PROFICIENCY. Follow the same strategy for the
next three gaps.
If one of the paragraphs (A-H) SCREAMS for a gap after you put down your first answer,
if you can indeed BET YOUR PROFICIENCY on it, OK, put down "2" next to that gap
and answer it. Then go back to choosing your next easiest gap.
TAKE YOUR CUES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, NOT FROM RIGHT TO LEFT!!!
STEP 3 - PLAY SEARCH AND DESTROY!!!
After your first four gaps are in, or occasionally, after your first 3, you might feel that Bet
Your Proficiency will not get you any more marks. It's time to switch games.
Search and Destroy involves looking at a gap and eliminating possible answer choices (A-
H) for it. If you look at a gap and realize that there is no way (because of clues in the A-H
answer choice) that three of the four remaining answer choices could fit that gap, write it in
and go on. As always, mark the number in sequence that you did the gaps. Continue until
you finish the test.
JUSTIFY EACH ANSWER. Students often fall into a paranoid relationship with the Item
Writer who created the test. Just as people, when they communicate, tend to characterize
the nature of a special bond in terms of "being on the same wavelength," students working
through an anonymously written test under enormous time pressure occasionally make
incredibly stupid mistakes because they mistake something the writer has put in as a simple
trap as some grand test of their intuitive ability.

From the start of Gapped Text, firmly tell yourself that YOU ARE NOT ON THE SAME
WAVELENGTH AS THE WRITER. Look for simple clues such as the ones I've outlined.
This is not mind-melding, it's all about pounds and pence. To quote a damned good test-
prep writer: "The right answers to standardized tests are always like the girl your mother
wants you to bring home, not the one that gets your blood boiling." Look for obvious traps
in questions that seem to call for extraordinary mental gymnastics beyond the mental
flexibility of ordinary mortals.
DO NOT CHANGE YOUR ANSWERS. Once an answer's down, it's down. Occasionally,
you will realize that you make a stupid mistake and change an answer. Never change an
answer because you "feel" it isn't right. Research has consistently shown that your "feeling"
probably isn't worth a tinker's damn.
Keep writing down the sequence as you do your practice tests. This will give you the
opportunity to see where you went wrong when you review your answers. As you realize
how valuable those first few answers are, and that the technique outlined above works
EVERY SINGLE TIME, your confidence will soar. Rein it back every once in awhile.
4 out of 7 answers is a fine performance. 57% is nothing to scoff at.What will give you
angina is if you score 5 out 7 on one test and 2 out of 7 on another test and go into the exam
room on the big day with little more in the way of test strategy than a few prayers to a God
who consistently, in my experience, only helps those who help themselves. AVOID ALL
OR NOTHING THINKING AND REMEMBER THAT HAY-SOOS WILL ALMOST
ALWAYS SIT THE GAPPED TEXT OUT.
Do not practice on fake tests. They are not made in the same way and subject to the same
criteria that Cambridge uses to make up the real ones. Practice on real Cambridge materials,
preferable CPE Past Papers and you won't go wrong. Practice on other materials is worth
nothing, and may even hurt your performance in the real test.

Go slow and first, and then pick up speed. Forcing yourself to follow the right technique at
first is worth every drop of nerve-racking sweat it takes.
Plan to do more Gapped Texts than other parts of the test in your test training. There are
two reasons for this. Obviously, the technique necessary to do them well is difficult to
master, but also, the psychological price of knowing that you did poorly on Gapped Text
will hurt you a great deal in the other papers that come after it, namely, Use of English and
Listening. Stick with it until you consistently score 5 out of 7.
The names of the games are, once again:
Bet Your Proficiency (first four gaps)
Search and Destroy (last three gaps)
Next time...shivers...Use of English, Gapped Sentences!
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Raf:
THANKS A LOT!!!
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Jan:
Hey, does this newsgroup have an 'upload file' facility like You-know-hoo? credo's hints
and tips could be useful to many people; why bury them in the postings?
Jan
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Raf:
I don't know, but I made my own English file with the tips I've been collecting through
these teaching groups... very very useful...
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1 2 3
credoquaabsurdum:
As promised, let's move on to the next part mentioned.

Use of English, Part 3, is a new concept in language testing. There are only 6 items, so it is
just 12 marks out of the 75 available. DO NOT LET THIS PART OVERWHELM YOU.
There's a bit of secret history behind this part.
As you might now, the revised CPE came out in December 2002. Before that, for years,
there was an intense yet quiet debate in Greece (the main consumer of the CPE for
generations) about sentence transformations.
Cambridge wanted to toss them out: the methodology behind Key Word Transformations
was very much linked to lower levels of the Cambridge Main Suite: PET and FCE. You
may not know how transformation drills came about in the first place, but the basic
methodology is called "The Audio-Visual Method" and it came about in the fifties as a
direct result of research on language learning done for the US Department of Defense.
Transformation drills, therefore, were the rage way back when, and some teachers still
speak of them fondly, but everyone else in the world called them old-hat.
The story is a bit more complex than this, of course, but the long and short of it was:
Cambridge wanted tranformations out, but the Greeks pleaded for them, and that's why you
have 14 marks based on KWTs and 12 based on this all-new exercise, Gapped Sentences.
How are Gapped Sentences linked to KWTs? Well, you may have noticed that the CPE is a
bit light in conscious vocabulary testing. Sure, there are 18 marks in Reading, Part 1,
Lexical Close, but that's a very small part in whole. Teachers can't really convince students
to study, study, study vocab based on 18 questions that count for about 4 percent of the
student's total mark on all five papers.
So Cambridge ESOL wanted to do away with KWTs and have a nice, hard vocabulary
section worth a lot of marks right in there that forced students to understand the meaning of
words and phrases and use them properly. Once they were vetoed by the Greek ELT
community, things got a bit nasty.
The new CPE KWTs (once again, Key Word Transformations) are remarkably open in
comparison with FCE 2-5 word transformations. This has been done deliberately. With 3
more words to play with, the Item Writers can do a lot more. It's still all about grammar
skills, though, and that means that the space once envisioned for vocabulary in Use of
English is far more limited.
That's why Gapped Sentences are as difficult as they are.

Gapped Sentences, though, have been something of a letdown. How hard can you make the
items before you hit the logical ceiling of difficulty (a native speaker should, all other
things being considered, be able to answer these questions)! There were also technical
concerns that screwed everything up. Greece raised an objection to the form and insisted
that ALL the items be the same part of speech, at least. Once this was granted, the writers
couldn't come up with some REALLY hard stuff, like this:
I would like to ADDRESS the question of taxation without representation.
Get out you ADDRESS book and look up I.P. Freely, would you?

In the 1860's, Abraham Lincoln wrote a speech called the Gettysburg ADDRESS.
So, now that all the parts of speech are the same, the test responds well to intelligent
strategy.
The importance of KEEPING A VOCABULARY notebook cannot be overstressed. There
is a learning connection between the hand and the eye: you need to WRITE new words and
phrases as you come across them DOWN, prefereably in an intelligent, well-thought-out
way, but WRITE THEM DOWN in a list, WRITE THEM DOWN on a grid, WRITE
THEM DOWN in a mind-map, JUST WRITE THEM DOWN!! Point clear? Vocabulary
word demands discipline, but pays off handsomely given time.
Strategy 1: WE GO SLOW!
The easiest approach, when doing this part of them test, is to read off the three sentences
and see if something jumps out at you. GO SLOWLY. Generally speaking, a word may
jump out of you for one of the gaps, but not for the others, and out of kneejerk impulse,
you'll put it down.

CHECK TO SEE IF THAT WORD COMPLETES AN IDIOM in the sentence. Here's an
example.
Cambridge CPE Past Papers, Test 1, Item 28
Winning the competition came as a .. surprise to Marianne.

Robin is determinted to keep on collecting football stickers until he has a .. set.
Sir Ralph arrived at the fancy-dress party in full army uniform, .. with badges and medals.
Here, on this one, you might logically write "a full set."

Is it an idiom? No, it's just a collocation, something you've seen somewhere else before.
Before you write "full" in the box provided on the answer sheet, physically write in your
answer in all three boxes.

Winning the competition came as a FULL surprise to Marianne.

Robin is determinted to keep on collecting football stickers until he has a FULL set.
Sir Ralph arrived at the fancy-dress party in full army uniform, FULL with badges and
medals.
If the first and the third sentences don't jump out of you as utter balderdash, you haven't
been working on pumping up your vocabulary. "Full surprise"? Ridiculous.
You might not have seen that if you didn't WRITE DOWN THE ANSWER IN ALL
THREE SPACES.
Strategy 2: HARNESS YOUR UNCONSCIOUS
Let's go back to this problem.
Winning the competition came as a .. surprise to Marianne.

Robin is determinted to keep on collecting football stickers until he has a .. set.
Sir Ralph arrived at the fancy-dress party in full army uniform, .. with badges and medals.
What part of speech is the missing part? It's an adjective: you might not be able to tell from
the third part, but in 1 and 2, it's just obviously an adjective and since it has to be the same
in all three sentences, it's an adjective.
Subvocalize it like this.
Winning the competition came as a (something) surprise to Marianne.

Robin is determinted to keep on collecting football stickers until he has a (something) set.
Sir Ralph arrived at the fancy-dress party in full army uniform, (something) with badges
and medals.
a (something) surprise
a (something) set
(something) with
Decode the meaning of the third sentence, which is obviously your biggest problem.
full army uniform, (something) with badges and medals.

Say it to yourself a few times:
full army uniform, (something) with badges and medals. full army uniform, (something)
with badges and medals. full army uniform, (something) with badges and medals.

Anything yet?
If this doesn't work, go on to another item. Your unconscious works like this: it will just
keep on churning away at the problem and an answer will pop up. Don't push it. Go on to
KWTs. If you completely forget this item, well, you still have to double-check your answer
sheet at the end of the Paper, so you won't completely miss it.

But just keep on repeating it as you get through different items.

full army uniform, (something) with badges and medals. full army uniform, (something)
with badges and medals. full army uniform, (something) with badges and medals.

There is a good change, that somewhere during the test, it will come out.
full army uniform, COMPLETE with badges and medals. a COMPLETE set
a COMPLETE surprise
Strategy 3: FOCUS ON IDIOMS, DREAD ADJECTIVE+NOUN COLLOCATIONS

Nine times out of ten, the sentence of the three in the problem that will give you the answer
beyond the shadow of a doubt will be an idiom. When you discover an idiom lurking
among the problems, cherish it as your best friend.
Item 29
They heard the news of their wrecked holiday plans with .. hearts.
For anyone convicted of such a crime, there is a .. penalty.

Simon is convinced he will be able to carry that .. rucksack all the way.
The missing item is obviously an adjective, yet again. The last item depends on the
MEANING of the whole sentence (another point, don't wimp out and read half the
sentence!). Idiom alert!
This is what your mind should be saying to you:
wrecked holiday plans... (something) hearts
Happy hearts?
Sad hearts? Bingo.
A sad rucksack? Uh-uh. A (something) rucksack ALL THE WAY. Why are those last three
words there? We also have "will be able to carry."

Such a crime? Why? A major crime. Important crime. Big crime. Penalty...big penalty.
Major penalty. Major rucksack? NO. Major heart? NO.
If you've done your vocabulary work, the answer will come at you, and the starting point of
that answer will be the sentence with the idiom. HEAVY hearts
a HEAVY rucksack
a HEAVY penalty
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
BUILD UP YOU VOCABULARY
If you haven't spent enough time building up your vocabulary, well, you can take
consolation in the fact that the Cambridge CPE exam people understand that they do not
promote good vocabulary learning skills among their candidates. They do not clearly
understand, however, that in a world with limited vocabulary input in the target language,
such as that of candidates studying for the test in Brazil, this policy effectively
discriminates against candidates who are economically unable to go to Britain to study.
They may not give a good goddamn, but their discriminatory policy and narrow-minded
appraoch should not deter you from devoting a lot more effort to the difficult work of
building your vocabulary than you might think you need based on your amateur analysis of
what the test tests.
It's boring, but keeping that notebook will pay great dividends.
BE ON ALERT FOR STUPID STRATEGIES
Peter May, author of a somewhat popular book called Towards Proficiency , writes and
teaches in England. As such a person, he has a number of "innovative" strategies for
helping students pass this test, and almost all of them are geared toward students studying
in Britain, immersed in the language.
Peter May is also one of the most egotistical fools writing junk preparation materials for
Cambridge exams. I have it on good authoirity that he only reached his present lofty
position as an Oxford University Press writer because he is a champion kiss-up when he
needs to be. May knows how the game is played and he writes to make as much money out
of students and gullible teachers as possible. I've met the man and I can attest to those
insurmountable facts.
To get back to the point, May actually recommends writing down all the words that spring
to mind for each gap in the gapped sentences and then seeing if any match.
This is a stupid strategy, because your mind, deprived of a "full English" immersion
environment, will most likely be unable to think of many alternatives. Moreover, you will
not improve with practice. Moreover, I doubt that this strategy words with foreign language
learners in Britain, either, despite their more advanced passive vocabulary resources.
However, it's in the book, because materials writers have to write SOMETHING down in
test-prep books, and depending on how much of an *** the writer is
Unless you are personally dealing with someone who has actually prepared students for this
test, TRUST NOTHING. Look at the dates that your books are published, as well. Good
materials only come out, as a rule, years after the examination in question is revised. A
book is more profitable if it is rushed to market just as soon as a new version of a test
comes out, but it is also full of what the writer THINKS will be on the test, and not what
s/he has actually experienced in preparing students for it.
That's why when I saw that you were keeping a tip file, Rafe, I started worrying. The new
CPE came out in December 2002. Pretty much anything that's out there right now is half-
witted materials written by people who don't understand the test. The other half is written
for the British market. No one with real brains who actually prepares students abroad is
currently writing internationally available materials for CPE. The main figures are: Nick
Kennedy-Macmillan (works in England), Kathy Gude-Oxford (works in England), Leo
Jones-Cambridge (works in England). William S. Fowler, the old expert in this test (who
worked in Spain and was the first person to talk about the problem I am outlining here),
died before the actual revision came out.
Pretty much all that you're going to find out there is junk, written by people jumping on the
revision and hoping to make money. Some books have good parts, but you have practically
no chance of finding your way through the minefield.
GET A PRIVATE TEACHER, WITH REAL EXPERIENCE in preparing kids for CPE in
Brazil. Everything else is a dangerous strategy, especially dealing with people in Usenet
groups who may or may not know what they're talking about and who hide their identity
behind stupid Internet aliases!!!
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Raf:
thank you very much... you've been very helpful, if you want to write more I'd appreciate...
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credoquaabsurdum:
Like I said...what do you need to know about? I've spent the last five years exclusively
preparing students in something of your situations for the CPE and other examinations.
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Raf:
other part that I find rather difficult that one which we have to rewrite a sentence using the
word given, and we're supposed to write among 3 and 8 words...
Concerning other examinations, I hold the FCE and I'll probably apply to CPE next year. I
was wondering if it would be worth applying to the Michigan Proficiency... Somebody told
me that it's easier than Cambrigde Proficiency... Do you agree with that?
Thanks again...
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credoquaabsurdum:
[nq:1]other part that I find rather difficult that one which we have to rewrite a sentence
using the word given, and we're supposed to write among 3 and 8 words...[/nq]
Key Word Transformations...I'll get on those soon, but it's a bad time right now.
[nq:1]Concerning other examinations, I hold the FCE and I'll probably apply to CPE next
year. I was wondering if it would be worth applying to the Michigan Proficiency...
Somebody told me that it's easier than Cambrigde Proficiency... Do you agree with that?
Thanks again...[/nq]
Yes and no...and I'll get on that in a bit, too.
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Raf:
ok, thanks. I'm looking forward to it.
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credoquaabsurdum:
[nq:1]ok, thanks. I'm looking forward to it.[/nq]
All right, Raf, here we go.
Key Word Transformations (those seven question on the U of E portion of the test that
you're worried about here, which I will hereafter refer to as KWTs) are one of the odder
aspects of the CPE. It's important to give you and the group some background on this.

My most accurate snitch once told that Cambridge, in the revision of the CPE, tentatively
decided to get rid of KWTs. After all, sentence transformations are part of an older method
of language teaching involving DRILLS. Now, many language teachers still feel that the
ability to conduct effective oral drills in class as a means of introducing material is one of
the distinguishing features of a professional language teacher, but the majority of us,
influenced to a great degree by something called "the communicative approach," feel that
such drills are artificial in the extreme and that we would be better off without them.
What is this "communicative approach"? By and large, it is an idea that is the creation of a
group of linguists headed by a fellow named Henry Widdowson who, at the moment, is still
one of the most respected professionals in the field. The approach holds that in teaching
language, especially to adults, we should do our best to devise activities that force the
student to actually communication their needs and wants or, in its "light" version, place our
students in situations that force them to assume a character and role-play their way out of a
situation.
The most strident critic of this approach is Michael Swan, who, back when the approach
first emerged, argued in a pair of articles that while the communicative approach did have
its merits, it didn't actually force students to learn language items. There is a certain merit,
according to Swan, to forcing a student to communicate, but when students fail to
communicate in these situations, it may not be indicative of a certain lack of
"communicative competence" (another fantastically complex and nebulous Widdowson &
Co. academic concept), but rather, may be due to not having enough vocabulary at one's
command to deal with the communicative problem at hand.

Swan's critique, in my view, has never been adequately met. Widdowson, in his response to
Swan's articles, basically lambasted him for being an old warhorse, and never really got
down to commenting on Swan's actual points.
It is worth mentioning that Michael Swan, at the time, was generally recognized to be the
world's foremost language teacher, and Widdowson as the world's foremost Second
Language Acquisition linguist. Widdowson's real-world experience in the trenches of
language teaching was therefore necessarily limited, but he did know his academic politics
and how to lambast someone in an academically-oriented article. To trainee teachers, the
communicative approach sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but for those of
us who have smelled the smoke and seen the elephant for some time, well, Swan's
argument makes a great deal of sense.

What does this ancient history (1980s vintage) have to do with KWTs? Well, in an
interesting twist, Swan's long-term writing partner, an American turned UK language
teacher, Catherine Walker, was the commissioned expert who was responsible for revising
the Use of English paper of the CPE in 2002.

We have KWTs on the First Certificate in English (FCE) and the CPE. The physical
difference is simple. On the FCE, you are allowed 2-5 words to fill in the gap, while on the
CPE you have to use 3-8 words.

FCE transformations, for experienced teachers, are a matter of introducing students to the
most commonly used structures of transformation. There is an excellent section in a book
called Cambridge First Certificate Handbook , by Helen Naylor and Stuart Hagger,
published by Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-62918-7 which covered the most
common areas. At FCE level, the book works superbly. It is still worth working through the
KWT section in your CPE preparation.
The problem is those three extra words in the CPE version of KWTs. As far as my research
can tell, NO ONE has managed to grasp that the CPE transformations are VASTLY more
open than FCE KWTs. That is to say, while in the FCE, only two or so versions of answers
would be accepted to fill the 2-5 word gap, in the CPE, a KWT might have six or so
possible answers. This is a real problem for candidates preparing for the CPE. One might
spend a lot of time working through possible variations in CPE practice books, get to the
test, and only then realize that you hadn't seen the same kinds of transformations.

Once upon a time and long ago, I had to do a seminar based on W.S. Fowler's notes on the
revised CPE. Do NOT use his skills books! Unfortunately, halfway through his revision of
the materials, Fowler keeled over while playing tennis. This explains why I, of course, did
the seminar!
Fowler was of the opinion that in general, CPE KWTs would contain two standard
elements, a structural point (something you'd find in a thick grammar practice book), and a
lexical point (an idiom, a collocation, a common word combination). I have not found this
to be true. Some KWTs have only structural points, others have only lexical points. There
might be as many as three points tested, as few as one.

There are, however, two marks available for each KWT, both in FCE and CPE. The way
that the marks distribution is decided is by drawing a line between the words in the answer
somewhere in the middle of the whole answer. The two marks are not interdependent. I
have repeated asked if there is some kind of standard procedure in drawing this line, and
have received equivocal answers. One prominent Cambridge ESOL employee/seminar
leader (test guru in the pay of the organization) has insisted that the line reflects "discrete
testing points." This is an example of what she meant, which incidentally is an actual item
from the December 2002 (0300) examination (the regular internation version).
38 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt the meeting.

intention
I'm sorry, I .. the meeting.
Cambridge markers are directed to accept:
did not have any intention / of interrupting
didn't have any intention / of interrupting
had no intention / of interrupting
Clearly, the split lies between two points here.
You need to know the structural point of no=not any, as in "have no intention" or "didn't
have any intention" and you also need to know that this point is followed by "of" and an -
ing form. Two discrete testing points, even though one might argue that there are three
points: that verbs following "of" usually take -ing forms. But on the whole, you see that
there is some kind of logic behind the split.
Incidentally, you could write:
...I had no intention / I hate English... and still get one mark. The marks, once again, are not
interdependent.
However, this item appears in the December 2002 (0301) version (the test that is given out
in Greece.
38 The guide pointed out to us the magnificent carvings above thewindows.
drew
The guide .. the magnificent carving above the windows.
Cambridge markers are directed to accept:
drew our / attention to
drew to / our attention
Where exactly are the "discrete testing points" here? This KWT clearly has only ONE
testing point, whether or not the candidate knows the idiom "draw attention to." The split is
based on nothing more than the desire of Cambridge ESOL people to have two marks in
this question.
In short, the seminar leader who dished out the "discrete testing point" *** to the hundred
or so teachers attending her seminar needs to be beaten to a bloody pulp for misdirecting
teachers in the hope of advancing her career by appearing to have all the answers. This is a
very common fault among people who are paid by Cambridge ESOL to promote these tests.
This is not, not, not a cheap shot at my colleague Einde O'Callaghan, the number one poster
in this group, who moonlights as a Cambridge ESOL employee and is paid to administer
the test in Germany. Cambridge ESOL hires other people to do seminars all the over the
place and make money by lying to people, hoping to indirectly promote language teaching
books they have authored. Einde is not, I repeat, NOT!!! one of those cheap hucksters.

In light of the above points, this is what you need to know to do well on this test.
Trust NO one's questions, other than Cambridge ESOL, when preparing for these tests. The
fake questions written by "test experts" do NOT appropriately reflect the level and nature of
the real CPE. There are several culprits in this regard who should be named. Peter May,
Kathy Gude, but most especially, MARK HARRISON. Longman's CPE U of E book,
written by Fiona-Scott Barnett, isn't half-bad, but it still isn't right. I've already talked about
Fowler.
You can generally trust books by Cambridge University Press for accurate practice
materials, but be careful. Base your final preparation on real Cambridge ESOL Past
Papers...they're boring, but they're accurate. Analyze those questions very, very carefully.

Remember that the two marks for KWTs are not interdependent. Write something down!
Take a guess if you have to. You could get a mark out of sheer, blind luck. Moreover, you
have a good deal of information locked up in your mind as passive vocabulary. Your guess
may just be right because you have unconsciously tapped this source. Don't laugh! I've seen
it happen a hundred times. Sometimes, you can indeed use the Force, Luke.
Be prepared for KWTs of different complexity sitting right next to each other. Just because
you needed eight words to complete a fantasically difficult KWT does not mean that the
next one will be just as difficult. Students often make the mistake of thinking: no, it CAN'T
be that simple. Sometimes, it is. Sometimes Cambridge just needs two easy marks in U of E
and hands you something you could have answered before you even heard of the
Cambridge Proficiency.

Once again, use Cambridge First Certificate Handbook in your CPE preparation. The KWT
section has never been equalled in any other book of my experience. The kinds of things
you will face in the CPE will be more difficult, the questions will most likely have many
possible answers, but some general familiarization with the general kinds of
transformations Cambridge asks you for at FCE level will still help you get through the
CPE questions and not miss any easy marks.

After you get done doing the KWTs, you should go over them again. I tell my students that
they can look at three things (not because there are only three things, but it's an easily
remembered number). It helps if they write down the answers to these three questions right
after each of the practice items (and before they check their answers!)

Have I remembered all the prepositions I need? (Yes or no) Have I spelled everything
properly? (A surprising number of marks are lost because of this.)
If I were creating this test, where would I put the split? Why?

The last question should be answered slowly and justified carefully.

My last bit of advice is to pay close, close attention to building your lexical vocabulary of
idioms, phrases and collocations. My main problem with the new CPE is that it does not
really, openly, encourage students to study their vocabulary. You can point to certain
sections (Reading, Pt1 and U of E Pt3,4) and tell students that they need to write, Write,
WRITE these expressions down, but it is the rare student who takes these warnings to heart
before it is too late in the game. Vocabulary is "the silent skill" of the Cambridge
Proficiency, and that's too bad.
That's all I have on this topic. Next up on the agenda, the Michigan English Language
Institute's Examination for the Certificate of Proficiency in English, more commonly
known here in the ancient land of the Hellenes as the Michigan Proficiency.
...or rather, the "Mee-tsee-gahn Praw-fee-seh-see."
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Einde O'Callaghan:
[nq:1]This is not, not, not a cheap shot at my colleague Einde O'Callaghan, the number one
poster in this group, who moonlights as a Cambridge ESOL employee and is paid to
administer the test in Germany.[/nq]
Thanks for your comments. I must point out that I only do the oral exams.
[nq:1]Cambridge ESOL hires other people to do seminars all the over the place and make
money by lying to people, hoping to indirectly promote language teaching books they have
authored. Einde is not, I repeat, NOT!!! one of those cheap hucksters.[/nq]
I wouldn't even dream of writing a language teaching book. The longer I do this job the less
competent I feel in some ways - at least in the sense that I feel less certain that I know ALL
the answers at the various levels of competence. In advanced classes I often feel that I fly
by the seat of my pants as I'm constantly faced by questions that I didn't anticipate. It makes
the job more exciting, of course.

My only advantage is that I'm a native speaker with some experience, knowledge and
understanding of the way the language works.But I haven't got the conceit to think that I
would be able to write a book that would be any help to other teachers. I'm more a
practitioner than a theoretician as far as language teaching is concerned.

As regard the Cambridge peoploe i have to deal with - my supervisor has what I regard as a
healthy "distrust" of the "wisdom" of Cambridge, which enables us to take a much more
relaxed attitude to the exam. Although I must say that the oral part of the exam isn't the
greatest problem for Germans. I personally think that they have most problems with parts
of Paper 3 - which brings us back to the topic of this thread.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
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credoquaabsurdum:
I have a correction to post on this thread: Catherine Walker's name is really Catherine
WALTER.