Mock examMock examEnglish Together · C1 Advanced · Exam Track
Mock 3 — Writing
Two tasks, ninety minutes, 220–260 words each, under exam conditions. The clock starts when you begin typing; nothing is marked until you hand in. Write both, hand in, then mark each against the real criteria, read the model, and — where a criterion would not tick — open the plan and write the task again.
90 minutes2 parts220–260 words each20% of the examExam conditions
Writing · Mock 3Exam conditions0 of 0 parts done
This is the exam-conditions mock: nothing is checked until you hand in. The clock starts when you answer your first question. After you hand in, every part is marked at once and the support opens for the debrief.
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 watched a televised debate on the value of studying history at school. You have made the notes below.
Why history should be studied at school: · it helps people understand the present · it trains people to weigh evidence · it gives a country a shared sense of who it is
Some opinions expressed in the debate: “You cannot read a newspaper properly without knowing what happened before you were born.” “History is not a list of facts; it is the habit of asking how we know.” “A country that forgets its past has nothing left to argue about.”
Write an essay discussing two of the reasons given for studying history at school. You should explain which of the two you think is more important, giving reasons in support of your answer. You may, if you wish, make use of the opinions expressed in the debate, 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 reasons — not one, not all three — and I have said clearly which of the two is more important.
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 reasons · 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 history teaches is…), an inversion, a nominalisation, a concessive clause (However much a nation may wish to…), a passive report (is often claimed to…).
A model answer at this level
Model answer — 252 words.
Of the three reasons put forward, the claim that history explains the present and the claim that it trains judgement are the two that survive scrutiny, and it is worth noticing that they are claims about quite different things: one about knowledge, the other about a habit of mind.
The first is the more familiar. A reader who knows nothing of the last century cannot make sense of a front page, because every dispute reported on it has a history that explains why the parties hold the positions they do. Without that history, current affairs become a sequence of unexplained events, and citizens who cannot explain events are easily told what to think about them. The objection — that the knowledge dates quickly — is real but minor; the frame outlasts the facts.
The second reason is less often made and, I would argue, more valuable. What history teaches, when it is taught well, is not what happened but how anybody knows. A pupil who has been asked to compare two accounts of the same battle, and to say which to believe and why, has learned something that transfers to every field in which evidence is contested — which is to say, to adult life.
It is this second reason I would place first. Knowledge of the past can be acquired at any age from a book; the habit of weighing sources is formed early or not at all, and a school is the one place that can insist on it.
As for shared identity, the third reason, it is what a nation gets from history whether it studies it or not, and usually gets wrong.
Support — the same task, with helpnot a grade
The plan.
Introduction — 2 sentences. Name the two reasons you have chosen and give the single observation that joins them (here: one is about knowledge, the other about a habit of mind). Do not announce your essay; point towards the verdict without stating it.
Paragraph 2 — your first reason. A claim, a mechanism (how exactly does knowing the past help with the present?), one consequence, and one honest limitation. The limitation is what sets up your verdict.
Paragraph 3 — your second reason. The same shape, so that the two are comparable, and the phrase that signals your preference — less often made and more valuable. Put the opinion from the notes into your own words here.
Paragraph 4 — the verdict. Which is more important and the one reason that decides it. The strongest verdicts compare the two on a single criterion (here: which one can only be acquired at school).
Closing sentence. One line that disposes of the third reason. Optional, and the mark of a candidate who read all three.
Every content point must appear.
Two of the three reasons — three is the commonest way to fail Content at C1, one the second.
A discussion of each, not a description: a mechanism and a limitation, not a slogan.
An explicit statement of which is more important. Stated, not implied.
Reasons for that choice that compare the two, not reasons for liking both.
Your own words. The three opinions are there to be reworked, not quoted.
220–260 words. Under 200 loses content marks automatically; over 300 loses control.
An opening you can borrow. “Of the three reasons put forward, the claim that history explains the present and the claim that it trains judgement are the two that survive scrutiny, and it is worth noticing that they are claims about quite different things: …” — names the two, joins them, and promises a verdict, 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.
Nothing is marked until you hand in.
Part 2 · Choose one
The choice — proposal, report 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 · Proposal. The tourist office in your town wants to create a self-guided walking route for visitors and has asked residents for proposals. Write a proposal explaining what kind of visitor the route should be designed for, describing two places it should include and why, and suggesting how the route should be made known to visitors.
3 · Report. Your college recently ran a scheme in which students taught older residents of the town to use smartphones and the internet. The principal has asked for a report. Write a report describing what took place, evaluating what both groups gained from it, and recommending whether and how the scheme should run again.
4 · Letter. Your local council has announced that it will stop running buses after eight o'clock in the evening in order to save money. Write a letter to the council explaining who would be affected by the change, why the saving may be smaller than the council expects, and what you propose instead.
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 proposal argues forward to somebody who must choose, a report evaluates what has happened for somebody who must decide whether to repeat it, a formal letter makes a case to an institution that has already made up its mind.
Your answer0 words
Mark your own against the real criteria:
Content. I have answered every element of the question I chose. For 2: the kind of visitor, two places with reasons, and how to make the route known. For 3: what took place, what both groups gained, and whether and how to repeat it. For 4: who is affected, why the saving may be smaller, and an alternative.
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: forward-looking and persuasive for the tourist office; impersonal and evaluative for the principal; formal, civil and firm for the council. It does not drift halfway through.
Organisation. The shape belongs to the genre — headings in a proposal and a report; none in a letter, which opens by naming its subject and closes with a request.
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: I would propose that…, this would appeal to… in a proposal; it was found that…, on balance… in a report; I am writing in response to…, I would urge the council to… 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 4 — the letter — 254 words.
Dear Councillor Brennan,
I am writing in response to the council's announcement of 3 May that bus services in the town will cease at eight o'clock each evening from September. I understand the pressure on the budget, and I do not doubt that the decision was taken reluctantly, but I believe it rests on a miscalculation and I would ask the council to reconsider.
The people affected are not, for the most part, those who might be imagined. Evening buses are used by hospital staff finishing late shifts, by students returning from the college's evening classes, and by workers at the two hotels on the ring road, none of whom can move their hours and few of whom own a car. For these passengers the change does not mean an earlier night; it means a taxi they cannot afford or a job they cannot keep.
Nor is the saving as large as it appears. The figure quoted assumes that the passengers lost after eight will continue to use the buses before eight. Experience elsewhere suggests otherwise: a person who cannot rely on a service home stops using it in the morning as well, and daytime revenue falls with the evening one.
I would therefore urge the council to retain a single hourly service on the two busiest routes until eleven, and to withdraw the remainder. This would preserve roughly two-thirds of the saving while keeping the town reachable for the people who keep it running after dark.
I should be grateful for a reply before the decision is confirmed.
Yours sincerely, Nila Ferreira
If you chose 2 or 3 instead. The proposal would carry headings, would name its visitor in the first section (a half-day visitor without a car, say) and let that choice justify both places, and would end with the promotion suggestion and a line on cost. The report would describe what happened in one paragraph with a number or two, would give the two groups separate paragraphs — the element most candidates merge — and would recommend with a condition: run it again, provided that…
Support — the same task, with helpnot a grade
The plan.
First, choose on evidence, not on interest. Which of the three could you give five concrete details for in ninety seconds? That is the one.
If you chose 2, the proposal. Introduction (purpose) · The visitor (one kind, named precisely — this decision drives everything else) · Place one (what, why it suits that visitor) · Place two (the same) · Making it known (one or two channels, with a reason) · Conclusion (one line, forward-looking). Headings. A proposal is written for somebody who will choose between several.
If you chose 3, the report. Introduction (purpose, sources) · What took place (facts, numbers, one paragraph) · What the residents gained · What the students gained — a separate paragraph; merging them is the commonest content loss · Recommendation (whether, and how — both). Headings; impersonal.
If you chose 4, the letter. Name the announcement and its date in the first sentence; state your position in the second. Concede the council's difficulty — the C1 move — before answering it. Then the three elements in three paragraphs: who, why the saving is smaller, what instead. Close with a request for a reply. No headings; a formal sign-off.
Whichever you chose, check the reader. A tourist office choosing between proposals · a principal deciding whether to repeat a scheme · a council that has already announced its decision. Every sentence answers to that person.
Every content point must appear.
The number of the question at the top.
Question 2: the kind of visitor · two places, each with a reason · how the route will be made known. Three elements — a proposal with two places and no visitor has skipped the one that justifies the other two.
Question 3: what took place · what the residents gained · what the students gained · whether to repeat it and how. The “both groups” is two elements, not one.
Question 4: who is affected · why the saving may be smaller than expected · what you propose instead. A letter that objects without proposing has answered two-thirds of the task.
220–260 words, and the genre visible in the first two lines.
An opening you can borrow. Proposal: “This proposal recommends a walking route designed for the visitor the town actually receives — the half-day visitor without a car — and identifies two places that such a visitor can reach and will remember.” · Report: “The purpose of this report is to describe the digital-skills scheme run in March, to assess what each group gained from it, and to recommend whether it should be repeated.” · Letter: “I am writing in response to the council's announcement of 3 May that bus services in the town will cease at eight o'clock each evening.”
Now write it again with the plan in front of you. Keep your first attempt — comparing the two is where the marks are.
Nothing is marked until you hand in.
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
This is the last mock, so look at the clock before the criteria. Forty-five minutes a task, and the last five of each are for reading back — a C1 script that has been read back loses fewer marks to slips than one that was written for forty-five. If you ran out of time, the plan is where the minutes went.