Writing Part 1
Overview
C1 Advanced Exam
In this section:
In Part 1, you'll need to write an essay. This section will talk about how to do this.
Time Management
During the Writing paper, you will need to complete two compositions. Both texts are the same amount of words and worth the same amount of points. Therefor, you should try to spend equal amounts of time on both tasks. On the C1 Advanced exam, you should aim to spend around 45 minutes per text.
Make sure that you give plan to both plan and check your work. Planning will actually help you write faster and will result in better pieces.
Suggested breakdown:
Planning - 10 minutes
Writing - 30 minutes
Checking - 5 minutes
A lot of people want to skip the planning and they start writing immediately. However, this often leads to disorganized essays and can lead to frustration. It's actually much wiser to plan your writing.
Having a plan will:
help your piece be more organized, leading to a higher mark for organization
help you with idea generation
make it easier to double-check that you've done everything required in the task, leading to a higher mark under content
make the writing process will be much easier and faster
result in writing which is easier to read, leading to a higher score under communicative achievement.
Planning is actually really easy and not a waste of time at all. In fact, all high-scoring pieces begin with plans.
What you must do
Part 1 has only one task, which you must answer. You will:
be given the essay topic.
be given three ideas to write about. You must write about two of these.
need to answer a question about the two topic you've chosen
need to give an opinion and support it with reasons (i.e.: which problem is bigger? which issue is more important?)
need to write around 220 and 260 words.
Assessed Abilities
In Writing Part 1, you need to show that you can use language appropriately to do things such as:
Agree and Disagree
Give an opinion
Give examples or explanations
Give reasons
Compare or contrast ideas
Draw conclusions
Language Assessed
Your writing style and tone will be evaluated during the exam.
When writing an essay you should use either a neutral or slightly formal tone.
How to do this:
Do not use contractions (for example: write "it is" instead of "it's" or "cannot" instead of "can't)
Avoid first person pronouns (no "I" or "we")
Avoid using phrasal verbs (for example: say "emit" instead of "give off" or "continue" instead of "keep on")
Consider using passive language or impersonal phrases (for example: say "it is often believed that..." instead of "many people believe that..."
Topics Addressed
You don’t have to be an expert, but you still have to answer the question!
The topic will be something of general interest, so you won’t need any specialist knowledge. However, it is very important that you write approximately the right number of words. This shows that you can select relevant information, organize it well, avoid repetition and keep the reader interested.
You will be provided with some "notes" on the topic. Including these is optional.
What a Task Looks Like
Here's an example of a C1 Advanced Part 1 task:
As you can see in the example, each question will tell you exactly what you must do. Here, you must write an essay and answer a question.
A Part 1 Essay will always have three bullet points and you will have to select two to talk about.
It will give you instructions about how to talk about these points. You will usually have to choose the best / worst / most significant etc option out of the two and defend that choice. For example, in the question above you have to explain which facility is more important.
It will also include some notes. Including the information provided by the notes is optional.
General Format
An essay should have both an introduction and a conclusion.
You can organize your essay quickly and easily by dedicating one paragraph to each part.
For a C1 Advanced essay task, I recommend:
Introduction
Introduce the topic - say what it will be about
Introduce the three points
Give your opinion (answer the question)*
Main body paragraph 1
One sentence introducing one of the points.
One sentence for why it is or isn't the best choice with a clear reason or example.
One sentence which addresses the main question.
Main body paragraph 2
One sentence introducing one of the points.
One sentence for why it is or isn't the best choice with a clear reason or example.
One sentence which addresses the main question.
Conclusion
Summarize the main points of your essay.
Restate the opinion.
Do not add new information.
*The essay question will always ask you to give your opinion about something (i.e.: which problem is the biggest? which issue is more important?) Some people wait until the conclusion to answer this question. However, conclusions technically should not include new information; therefore, I suggest stating it in the introduction so you do not forget to include it.
When following this format, you can develop your essay very quickly. It's also very easy to make everything cohesive by making your opinion clear and by always addressing the main question at the end of the body paragraphs.
You will find that the word limit is actually rather short, so you should not write too many things about each point. However, use this to your advantage; the more you write, the more possibilities there are for mistakes. So, keep your essays short and to the point and focus on communicating your ideas clearly.
Word Length
The suggested word limit for a C1 Advanced Exam essay is 220 - 260 words.
Note that the word limit is only a guideline; you can go over and under without losing points. As long as you've included all the required information, you can write less words. You can also write more words provided that everything is relevant to the task.
Keep in mind:
Responses that are too short are probably missing important information, so double check that you've included everything mentioned in the task.
Responses that are too long may have irrelevant information. You will lose points for including irrelevant information. Never go off topic.