Tag: fce

I have already published several speaking activities. There is Summer Holiday Speaking activity or School Subjects Speaking Activity. However, this post is different as the speaking activity here is a sample FCE exam speaking test.

The FCE speaking exam consists of four parts. In this post you can find an example of each part and there are instructions how to use them in a class.

There are always two students examined at the same time (if there is an odd number of students there are three students.) There are two examiners. One of them speaks and the other does not. She only takes notes of what is said. The examiners are always very friendly.

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In the first part the interlocutor (the examiner who asks the questions) asks some general questions to get to know the students. Here are some examples of the questions:

Hello, what is your name?
Where do you live?
What do you think of the area where you live?
What kind of music do you listen to?
Has your taste in music changed in the past?
Where do you like listening to music?

In this part each student gets two pictures and they have to compare them for one minute. Then they have to listen to their partner and react to what they say. They have about 20 seconds for their reaction.

Examiner: In this part of the test, I´m going to give each of you two photographs. I´d like you to talk about your photograpraphs on your own for about a minute, and also to answer a short question about your partner´s photographs. Candidate A, it´s your turn first. Here are your photographs. They show different activities people do alone. I´d like you to compare the photographs, and say why the people want to be alone. All right?

Then the examiner says: Thank you. Candidate B, what do you like doing alone?
Thank you.
Now, Candidate B, here are your two photographs. They show people being together in groups. I´d like you to compare the photographs, and say why you think people are together in these situations. All right?

Thank you.
Candidate A, what do you think of formal meetings?
Thank you.

The third part is a cooperative task. In this task the students have to take turns and agree on the answer together. This part lasts about 4 minutes.

The examiner says: Now, I´d like you to talk about something together for about three minutes. There is a youth club in your town and you would like to offer to teenagers some activities they would like. You have to choose form the activities in the pictures. First, talk to each other about why you think people would like these activities and then decide which two activities you would offer to people and why. All right?

In this part the examiner asks the students several questions connected with the topic in part three. This part takes between three and four minutes.

Examiner:Which of these activities do you enjoy doing?
Which activities do you hate doing?
Are there enough activities for teenagers in the area where you live?
What are the problems teenagers in your area have?
What should be done, so that teenagers would cause no problems?
Are there any activities which aren´t suitable for teenagers?
(The examiner will add these as he/she thinks appropriate:
What do you think?
Do you agree?
And you?)

You can either ask your students to work in pairs or in groups of three. If they work in pairs, one of them asks and the other answers. They swap roles after the given time. If they work in groups of three, one of them is the interlocutor and he/she reads the instructions and times the parts.

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The teacher should monitor and note the mistakes students make to deal with them later in the lesson.

You can download the full worksheet here:

FCE Speaking Exam – pdf worksheet

I always loved the word formation part of the FCE test. This was the part of the test where I always scored really high. However, some of my students don’t. So I sat down and tried to find out why I have been so successful in this part of the test.

And the result? I believe that I do well on these tests because I know the other forms of words. I take the key word and then learn all of its other forms, and when I meet the word in a test I am able to remember the correct form.

In this post I am going to give you a chance to do the same. I selected 10 words that regularly appear in the word formation test for B2 level, and I listed all the forms and example sentences. What should you do? Try to memorise all the forms from the infographic and then go through the online quizzes.

Study the following infographic and try to remember all the forms. Do not forget to notice the differences in meaning.

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Do not spend too much time just learning the forms. It is best to use them in context, so I believe it is time to move to the online quizzes.

The first online quiz is in HTML5 so it will play on all devices. Your task is to choose the correct form of the words, and if you pass the quiz you will be given a chance to play a game as a reward.
Word formation quiz – full screen

The second game is called En Garde and it will only play on your desktop as it is made in flash. Your task is to choose the correct answer and then stop the circle as close to the centre as possible. Will you win?

Word formation quiz – full screen You can find more interesting exercises at the British Council site.