Use of English practice

The following exercises provide practice for the Use of English section of the exam.

The Cambridge English Scale

From January 2015,  a new way of reporting results for Cambridge exams has been implemented. This is called the Cambridge English Scale, and it is a range of scores used for reporting the results of Cambridge English exams. The Cambridge English Scale is designed to complement the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).This new system provides candidates with more detailed information about exam performance.

You can watch this video which introduces the Cambridge Englis Scale

Use of English - Cloze: Adelante Africa

Do you know any organization that helps children at risk?
Do you support any organization that works to support children at risk around the world?

There is one NGO called Adelante Africa that works hard to help children in Uganda to have an education, but most importantly to have a better life.

You can read about how it all started in the article below.  As you read you can practise your English completing the blanks with the missing words.

Cambridge English: First (from 2015), Victoria and Edward

This video shows a sample Speaking paper for FCE.

Cambridge English: First (from 2015), Florine and Maria

This video shows a sample Speaking paper for FCE.

Phrasal verbs: Particle UP

Have a look at the following posters with phrasal verbs using the particle UP.

If we understand the meaning of the particles that form phrasal verbs, we may remember them more easily.

You can practise phrasal verbs using UP with these activities:
Exercises with phrasal verbs using UP

Sentence transformation 7

Key Word Transformations.

Reading - Cloze

The Affluenza Defence

Read the text below about a court case in the USA.  After you have read it once to get the gist of the text.  Read the sentences that have been removed from the text and re-read the text once more trying to decide in which places you should insert the removed sentences.  Be careful, there is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

Word Formation 1

Practice your vocabulary related to word formation with some sentences to complete.

Word Formation

As part of your preparation for the FCE, you must work with Word Formation.  The use of prefixes and suffixes has to be clear for you if you want to pass your exam with flying colours.  Try this activity to check some negative prefixes.

Reading - Cloze

Open Cloze Exercise

Read the text below and fill in the blanks with only ONE word in each space.

Reading - Cloze and Multiple Choice

Reading

Read the text below, ignoring the blanks first and choose the best option (a, b, c or d) to answer the questions. Then, re-read the text again and fill in the blanks with ONLY one word in each space.

Sentence transformation 6

Key Word Transformations.

Reading - Multiple choice 2

Read the following text and for questions 1-7, choose the best answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to the text.

Smile please

Reading - Multiple choice 1

The first paper of the FCE exam (The Reading paper) tests students' s reading skills.  There are different activities in this part.  One of them is the one with multiple choice questions.  The texts are followed by five questions which show four options, from which only one is correct.  The other three are called distractors, that is, they may look similar to what the text says but they usually contain something that is wrong or not mentioned in the text.  You must read and re-read the questions and the text while ignoring the distractors until you have found the most appropriate answers.

Sentence transformation 5

Let's go on practising with new set of sentence transformations o paraphrasing.

Sentence transformation 4

Yet another set of 10 sentences to develop your confidence with this part of the exam.

Sentence transformation 3

Another set of sentences to practise Sentence Transformations.

Sentence transformation 2

The set of sentences below offers practice for this part of the Use of English paper of the FCE.

Sentence transformation 1

The exercise below gives practice on sentence transformation, which is one of the exercises that you will have to do in your FCE examination.  I hope that this activity helps you with this area of the exam.  You can also check this link for more sentences.