The Online Exam Room

A link to signposting language for essays. http://www.library.dmu.ac.uk/Support/Heat/?page=486 Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Looking for advice on how to begin your essay? Click! Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Here's a great recipe for preparing an essay. You can use it for First and for IELTS too. Click! Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Polishing your essay skills. Link! Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Follow this link for an lesson on Essays at CPE. You'll find a downloadable PDF linked from the page. This is ideal to help you practice constructing your answers with a good range of expressions. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

A sample for the Part 1 task. Click! Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Excellent advice for Part 1 of the Writing test here. Link . Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

A full page of advice on writing essays at First. Link. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Advanced Essay sample . Pay attention to the organisation and vocabulary content. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Lots of good advice on high-level essay writing here . Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Academic English, but useful for essays, reports and proposals, amongst other forms of formal English. http://www.luizotaviobarros.com/2013/04/academic-writing-useful-expressions.html Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

An excellent slideshow with language for essays and articles. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Supplementary Study for C2 Openlearn is the Open University's free site. it contains entire short courses in a huge variety of subjects, including writing skills. Here's a link to a course (15 hours of self study) on Essay and Report Writing.  If you're interested in studying at a British university this is worth looking through. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Working on an essay? Try Essay Planner . Need to Compare and Contrast? Try the Compare and Contrast Map . Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Click on the link below for some advice from a US university website on writing at CEFR C2 level, including Cambridge Proficiency. http://www.fullspate.net/advanced-efl-essay-writing/ecpe-essay-writing-advice.html Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

2. Essay (120-180 Words) You have recently had a discussion in your English class about places to live. Now your teacher has asked you to write an essay, giving your opinion on the following statement. Whatever your age, life in the country is always better than life in the city. There's a lot of opinions about where life is better but in my opinion, the advantages are more ^ than the disadvantages if ü you live in the city. In the cities there're more options that you can choose. The important building are usually in the center, where everybody can arrive . There are also more activities, what is more ü , if you are a teenager the city is more amazing ü , because it's bigger, there's more party , but if you're an adult it can also be better, because your office will probably be there. (Adults don’t go to parties then? Hmmmm!) On the other hand ü the city is sometimes stressful ü ü , because there's a lot of noise, traffic jams ü ü and...

Some keywords when writing essays. Can you predict the advice they come from? Outline what at the start? Start with an interesting what? Main paragraphs start with topic what? In main paragraphs, give detailed what? After your main paragraphs, you may have a summery or a summary one? You might finish with...what? Go here for one method you might like to adapt to CAE length.

Some questions about essays for you to think about. How should you start and finish your first paragraph? What could you put at the start of the following paragraphs? If you give examples in your paragraphs, what should they be? What does the final paragraph do? What could come after the final paragraph? Go here for advice on what to put in your paragraphs. Remember that at First you have a word limit of around 150, so your number of paragraphs will be restricted to 4 or maybe 5.