Writing the Opening Sentence

Your very first sentence should tell the reader what your essay is about. 

Paraphrasing the Question

In general, Cambridge doesn't like it when you reuse their language, so you should always paraphrase when possible. However, you can repeat some words - in fact, that's expected. 

You can copy single words from the information given to you, but you cannot copy an entire section of the question. Never copy a sentence word from word. You must paraphrase.

This is the original task introduction and question: 

Which facilities should receive money from local authorities? Museums, sports centres, or public gardens?

Some things we could for this question are:

1. Change the words - Identify any synonyms you know:

facilities = establishments, centres, buildings, structures

money = funds, cash, donations, financial incentives, funding

authorities = government, people in charge, government bodies, decision makers

local = regional, municipal 

receive = be given, get, obtain

public = community

2. Change the sentence structure - Change verbs into nouns and nouns into adjectives, etc.

sports = sporting

money = monetary

to receive = receipt

Remember that a paraphrased sentence has the same meaning as the original, and your work must also be grammatically correct. 

A direct paraphrase of our original question could be:

Which establishments should be granted public funding?

As you can see, some words are repeated, but the most important words have been substituted with synonyms.

Read more about paraphrasing here.

Adding a hook

On the C1 Advanced exam, you should try and make your writing engaging to the reader. While it's not necessary, there are a few things you could do to make your introduction more interesting:

1. Write a question - One easy way to add some variety to our grammar is by asking a question. For example, using the above task we could potentially write:

It is common for many types of establishments to receive funds from local governments. However, which facilities are most deserving? 

2. Write a fact - You can also use a fact in the opening line of your essay. However, try to use general pieces of information and make sure your facts are plausible:

Bad: On average, local government spend nearly 45% of their budgets giving public support to facilities within their regions.

Better: On average, local government spend a significant portion of their budgets giving public support to facilities within their regions.

3. Write a concession - Consider adding a concession or counter argument. To do this, start by writing the opposite of what you want to say and then add your opinion: 

While a lot of people believe that sports facilities are the most important facility of government funding within a community, others feel that museums are more deserving of support.

Introduce the Two Points

It's always important to tell the examiner exactly what you essay will talk about so you should mention the three points.

Here are our points:

• museums

• sporting centres

The sentence could be something like:

How public funding should be allocated is always a major question for decision-makers. It's no question that museums and sports facilities are both essential to creating communities where people have a high quality of life. 

Write your Thesis Statement (RE: Answer the Question)

Finally, if the task asks you a question, you should state your opinion. 

Note: some people wait until the conclusion to state the opinion, but you should not do this for two reasons:

• Technically, a conclusion should never include new information

• You risk forgetting to answer the question 

As you can see, it's better to write it at the beginning. Also, writing it at the beginning gives us an opportunity to always reference it in our essay, making it more cohesive and resulting in a higher score under organization. 

For this task, it says:

"You should explain which facility is more important for local authorities to give money to, giving reasons in support of your answer."

In this case, my answer will be: Museums are the most important facility for local authorities to give money to.

We could say something like this:

How public funding should be allocated is always a major question for decision-makers. It's no question that museums and sports facilities are both essential to creating communities where people have a high quality of life. However, while sports facilities are indeed important, museums should be given priority when distributing funding, for the reasons expressed below.

Note: When the question asks for you to give an opinion, always pick a side, even if you don't really have one.

It's possible that you will have no strong feelings about the topic, or feel that both points are important. However, it is much, much harder to write a cohesive answer while juggling two sides to an argument. Instead, just select one side and defend it in your essay; your opinion and essay will be clearer to the examiner, resulting in a higher mark.