The Online Exam Room

Do it yourself, Use of English Practice for Part 2 of FCE, CAE and CPE. You can now make your own exercises - and, ideally, share them with your classmates. 1 Find a section from a suitable article. Aim for about 200-250 words. Try to make sure it ends at a logical point (ie the end of a paragraph). 2 Copy from the webpage. You might need or want to check you have the text you want by pasting into an application like Word. 3 Go to here   4 Paste in your text. 5 Choose a level: one word in 12 is best. 6 Print or save as PDF. Warnings! There's no level, as such - use this technique to practise understanding a text with gaps and filling spaces logically. The words are selected at random, not specifically as they are for the exams. The software doesn't distinguish between contractions or punctuation. Tweet Follow @bclasrozas

Still in need of inspiration? Go here for more articles than you will ever need - in alphabetical order. Use them for ideas, but make sure the constructions and grammar are always yours.

Here's a selection of "complaining language" from the British Council, Madrid Adults. Particularly formal language is in italics. Some introductory sentences: I am writing to you to express my indignation / outrage that I feel I must complain about the manner in which I am writing to you following a most regrettable incident I am somewhat concerned about something which occurred I am writing to you because I feel I can no longer put up with - direct! I feel I must express my deep unease at the manner in which I would just like to mention a little problem which has cropped up/ arisen concerning Detailing the complaint: I was absolutely outraged to learn that - direct! I find it quite appalling/ most regrettable/ totally unacceptable that X should + verb - direct! It is quite beyond belief that a grown adult should + verb - direct! I was quite amazed to discover that - direct! You can imagine my surprise when It is rather unfortunate that he should + verb Apportio...

An example of an Open Cloze test from Hibernia in the Czech Republic. Follow us on