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 B2 First exam, you should aim to spend around 40 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:

• 1. 1. Planning - 10 minutes

     2. Writing - 25 minutes

     3. Checking - 5 minutes

A lot of people want to skip the planning and they start writing immediately. However, this often leads to disorganized composition 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 compositions begin with plans.

What you must do

For each task, you will:

• be given a topic.

• be told who you're writing to. 

• told what kind of piece to do (i.e.: a letter, a report, a blog post, etc.).

• have sub-questions that you must address in your work. They may or may not come in the form of bullets. Take time to read the question carefully and underline what you must answer in your piece. 

• ask you your opinion about something, to be supported with reasons or examples.

• need to write between 140 and 190 words.

Read also the section about word usage.

General Format

The format of each piece will depend on what your writing. However, in general, each composition will have:

• An introductory paragraph

• Body paragraphs about each point

You should organize your work by dedicating one paragraph to each part.

For a C1 Advanced task, I recommend:

When following this format, you can develop your composition very quickly and in a way that's nice and organized. 

You will find that the word limit is actually pretty 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 compositions short and to the point and focus on communicating your ideas clearly.

Word Length

The suggested word limit for a C1 Advanced exam composition 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.