The PASS English Exam Blog

        Is the computer-based format better for IELTS and Cambridge exams?   All teachers who have worked in the field of English exam preparation know this scenario. Your student comes back from their exam looking a bit glum and you ask them what went wrong. They complain that they couldn’t concentrate because people were coughing and sneezing or there was building work going on outside. Moreover, typically, they say the sound system at the venue was poor quality and they couldn’t hear the audio recordings properly. Furthermore, the tables weren’t close enough together so it was almost impossible to cheat. Well, ok, I made up that last one! When students complain about exam conditions I usually reassure them that it probably won’t have had a big effect on their overall performance, and maybe I privately think they are getting their excuses in early. However, at the back of my mind I do feel a lot of sympathy as regards the quality of the audio. It really c...

Easter is hard upon us and the Bunny is on its way bringing eggs to well-behaved children. Well, I have 3 things I’d like to ask the Bunny to bring to students who are preparing English exams such as Cambridge B2 First, C1 Advanced or IELTS. But they aren’t eggs. Today I attended a Macmillan Education webinar entitled, “7 tips for setting up an exam preparation course”. The speaker was Ethan Mansur, writer of the Teacher’s Book of the 4 th edition of Macmillan’s long-running “Ready for” series. I have always felt this series provides great support to teachers who are preparing their students for B2 First and C1 Advanced. In his talk, Ethan made some interesting points that I’d like to pick up on. Firstly, he stressed the importance of doing a needs analysis at the start of a course. So far so good but what I really liked were the 3 main areas of the needs analysis: strengths and weaknesses; motivations; learning preferences . This student-centred approach allows educators and teacher...