Mock examMock examEnglish Together · C1 Advanced · Exam Track
Mock 1 — Writing
Two tasks, ninety minutes, 220–260 words each, with the plan already open on both. Write the answer with the skeleton in front of you, mark it against the real criteria and read the model. Then clear the support and write the same task again from nothing — that second draft, written without the plan, is the one that shows you what you have.
90 minutes2 parts220–260 words each20% of the examSupport open from the start
Writing · Mock 1Scaffolded0 of 0 parts done
This is the scaffolded mock: every part opens with its support showing. Use it, check, then clear it and try the part alone — that second attempt is the one to watch.
Part 1 · Compulsory
The essay
You must answer this question. Write your answer in 220–260 words in an appropriate style. Roughly 45 minutes.
Your notes
Your class has attended a panel discussion on how universities can best prepare their students for working life. You have made the notes below.
Ways a university can prepare students for working life: · work placements during the course · teaching general skills such as writing and presenting · involving employers in designing courses
Some opinions expressed in the discussion: “A placement teaches you in a month what a lecture cannot teach you in a year.” “Nobody was ever hired for knowing the syllabus — they were hired for being able to explain it.” “Employers keep asking for skills they cannot define themselves.”
Write an essay discussing two of the ways in which a university can prepare its students for working life. You should explain which of the two you think is more effective, giving reasons in support of your answer. You may, if you wish, make use of the opinions expressed in the discussion, but you should use your own words as far as possible.
Your answer0 words
Mark your own against the real criteria:
Content. I have discussed exactly two of the three ways — not one, not all three — and I have said clearly which of the two is more effective.
Content. Every paragraph answers the question that was set. Nothing has been added that the task did not ask for, however interesting it is.
Communicative achievement. The register is a consistent, fairly formal essay voice: no contractions, no “you”, no exclamation marks, no rhetorical questions used as filler.
Communicative achievement. The opinions from the notes are in my own words. Nothing is copied from them for more than three or four words at a time.
Organisation. Introduction that frames the question · one paragraph for each of the two ways · a conclusion that gives the verdict. The verdict in the conclusion is the same one the introduction pointed towards.
Organisation. The joins between paragraphs are explicit and varied — concession, contrast, consequence — and no linking expression is used twice.
Language. At least three structures a B2 candidate would not reach for: a cleft (What a placement offers is…), an inversion, a nominalisation, a concessive clause (However well designed a course may be…), a passive report (is widely held to…).
A model answer at this level
Model answer — 248 words.
Of the three approaches under discussion, work placements and the teaching of general skills seem to me the two with the strongest claim, and they are worth comparing because they answer the same question in opposite ways.
The case for placements is that they are real. A student who spends a month inside an organisation learns what no lecture can convey: how decisions are actually made, how much of a working day is spent on things that were never on any syllabus, and whether the field is one they can bear. Placements are, however, expensive to arrange, unevenly distributed, and dependent on the goodwill of employers who have every reason to offer them to the students who need them least.
General skills have the opposite profile. Writing clearly, speaking to a room and handling data are unglamorous, they can be taught to every student at almost no cost, and they transfer to any occupation whatever. The objection that such skills are vague is usually made by people who already have them.
It is nevertheless the placement that I would defend as the more effective, and for one reason: it changes what a student wants. General skills improve a person's chances of getting a job; a month in a workplace tells them which job to want, and the second of these is by far the harder to obtain from a classroom. What a university can do is make placements ordinary rather than exceptional, so that the experience is not a privilege of the well connected.
Involving employers in course design, the third option, would in practice mean teaching whatever last year's market wanted. Universities should be preparing students for the one after that.
Support — the same task, with helpnot a grade
The plan.
Introduction — 2 sentences. Name the two ways you have chosen and give the single reason you have put them together (here: they answer the same question in opposite ways). Do not announce your essay (“In this essay I will…”); at C1 that costs you organisation marks. Point towards your verdict without stating it yet.
Paragraph 2 — your first way. A claim, a reason, one concrete consequence — and one honest weakness. One paragraph, one idea. Put the opinion from the notes into your own words here; reworded, not quoted.
Paragraph 3 — your second way. The same shape, so that the two are comparable. The phrase has the opposite profile or answers the same question differently is the hinge that makes the essay one argument rather than two lists.
Paragraph 4 — the verdict. Say which is more effective and give the one reason that decides it. The strongest C1 verdicts compare the two on a single criterion (here: what each one changes in the student) rather than listing advantages again.
Closing sentence. One line that disposes of the third option you did not choose. Optional in the rubric and very effective in practice — it shows the examiner you read all three and chose.
Every content point must appear.
Two of the three ways — choosing three is the commonest way to fail Content at C1, and choosing one is the second.
A discussion of each of the two, not a description: a reason and a limitation, not just a fact.
An explicit statement of which is more effective. Not implied — stated.
Reasons supporting that choice, and they must be reasons for preferring one over the other, not reasons for liking both.
Your own words. The three opinions in the notes are there to be argued with, agreed with or turned around — not transplanted.
220–260 words. Under 200 loses content marks automatically; over 300 loses control.
An opening you can borrow. “Of the three approaches under discussion, work placements and the teaching of general skills seem to me the two with the strongest claim, and they are worth comparing because…” — a first sentence that names the two, joins them, and promises a verdict, all without saying “In this essay”.
Now write it again with the plan in front of you. Keep your first attempt — comparing the two is where the marks are.
Part 2 · Choose one
The choice — report, review or letter
Write an answer to one of the questions 2–4 below. Write your answer in 220–260 words in an appropriate style. Put the question number at the top of your answer. Roughly 45 minutes.
Questions 2, 3 and 4
2 · Report. The principal of your college is concerned that the college library is not being used as well as it could be, and has asked students for reports. Write a report describing how students currently use the library, identifying the main problem, and recommending two changes that would improve it.
3 · Review. An English-language website for learners is collecting reviews under the heading Listen to this. Write a review of a podcast series you follow, saying what it is about, what makes it worth a learner's time, and what kind of listener would not enjoy it.
4 · Letter. A friend from your home country is thinking of spending a year studying in Britain and has written to ask what surprised you most when you arrived, and what they should do to prepare. Write a letter replying to your friend.
Choose one of questions 2, 3 or 4 above. Begin your answer by typing the number you have chosen. Each is a different genre with a different reader and a different job to do — a report describes and recommends to somebody who must act, a review evaluates for somebody deciding whether to listen, a letter to a friend advises in a voice that friend would recognise.
Your answer0 words
Mark your own against the real criteria:
Content. I have answered every element of the question I chose. For 2: current use, the main problem, and two recommendations. For 3: what it is about, why it is worth a learner's time, and who would not enjoy it. For 4: what surprised me, and what to do to prepare.
Communicative achievement. The genre is unmistakable from the first two lines. A reader shown only the opening could say which of the three I chose.
Communicative achievement. The register fits the reader: impersonal and factual for the principal; engaged and evaluative for the website; warm and informal — contractions allowed — for the friend. It does not drift halfway through.
Organisation. The shape belongs to the genre — headings and a recommendations section in a report; no headings in a letter; a review that judges rather than summarises.
Organisation. Paragraphs are of deliberate length and each one has a job. The last paragraph does something other than repeat the first.
Language. Genre-specific language is present and correct: It was found that…, It is recommended that…, this would enable… in a report; hedged evaluation in a review; you'll find…, whatever you do, don't… in a letter.
Language. 220–260 words, with errors that never obscure meaning, and at least three complex structures used because the sentence needed them.
A model answer at this level
Model answer to question 2 — the report — 251 words.
Introduction The purpose of this report is to describe how students currently use the college library, to identify the principal obstacle to its fuller use, and to recommend two changes. It is based on a short survey of forty-two students and on my own observation over one week.
Current use The library is busy but narrowly used. Most students visit it for one purpose only — a quiet desk in the fortnight before assessments — and the survey found that fewer than a quarter had borrowed a book this year. The subject collections, the journal databases and the study rooms on the upper floor are largely unknown; several respondents were unaware that the upper floor existed.
The main problem The difficulty is not the building or the stock but information. Nobody explains the library to students after the first week of the first year, and what was said then was not retained. The result is a valuable resource being treated as a waiting room.
Recommendations It is recommended, first, that every course include one timetabled session in the library in its second term, led by a librarian and tied to a real assignment. This would reach every student at the moment the resources became useful. Secondly, the upper-floor study rooms should be made bookable online; at present they can be reserved only in person, which in practice means they are never reserved at all.
Conclusion Both measures are inexpensive and could be in place by the start of next term.
If you chose 3 or 4 instead. The review would open with a judgement rather than a summary, spend its middle paragraphs on one or two episodes described in enough detail to be persuasive, and end by naming the listener who should stay away — the element most candidates forget. The letter would open by answering the friend's question directly, in the friend's own register, would give one surprise properly rather than five in a list, and would close with advice that is specific enough to act on and a line that sounds like you.
Support — the same task, with helpnot a grade
The plan.
First, choose on evidence, not on interest. Ask which of the three you could produce five concrete details for in ninety seconds. A dull task you have material for beats an appealing task you do not.
If you chose 2, the report. Introduction (purpose and where your information came from) · Current use (one paragraph, specific, with a number or two) · The main problem (one problem, named precisely, and it should be the cause of what you described) · Recommendations (two, each with what it achieves) · Conclusion (one line). Use headings. A report is written for somebody who will act on it and has no time.
If you chose 3, the review. Open with a verdict, not with what the podcast is. Then what it is about, in enough detail that a reader could picture an episode. Then why it earns a learner's time — be specific about the language, the pace, the voices. Close with the listener it is not for, said kindly. No headings; a voice.
If you chose 4, the letter. Open by answering the question asked — what surprised you — in the first line, the way you would speak. Give one surprise properly, with a small story, rather than a list. Then the advice: two or three things to do, concrete enough to act on. Close with something warm and a sign-off a friend would use. Contractions are correct here; formality would be the error.
Whichever you chose, check the reader. Write down who is going to read it before you write the first line: a principal deciding on changes · a learner deciding whether to press play · a friend deciding whether to come. Every choice of word answers to that person.
Every content point must appear.
The number of the question at the top. Answering an unnamed task confuses the examiner and costs marks that cost nothing to keep.
Question 2: how the library is used now · the main problem · two recommendations. Three elements — a report with recommendations and no description of current use is answering half the task.
Question 3: what it is about · why it is worth a learner's time · who would not enjoy it. That last element is the one most candidates drop.
Question 4: what surprised you most · what your friend should do to prepare. Two elements, and both must be answered — a letter that is all surprise and no advice has done half the job.
220–260 words, and the genre visible in the first two lines.
An opening you can borrow. Report: “The purpose of this report is to describe how students currently use the college library, to identify the principal obstacle to its fuller use, and to recommend two changes.” · Review: “I put off listening to X for a year because everybody told me to, and I was wrong to wait.” · Letter: “You asked what surprised me most, and the honest answer is how little of it was the language.”
Now write it again with the plan in front of you. Keep your first attempt — comparing the two is where the marks are.
What this paper told you
A writing part counts as done when the length is right and every criterion ticks. That is a harder test than the examiner's, on purpose.
0parts done
—marks, best unaided attempt
0parts where you opened the support
The scaffolded mock teaches the shape of each genre. If your second draft — the one without the plan — kept the shape, the plan is now yours. If it lost a paragraph or a content point, that is the thing to rehearse this week: not more writing, but planning the same task three times in five minutes each.