FCE B2 First Writing Exam 5 Steps to Write a Great Essay
Hi, I’m Kasia.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson you can learn how to write
an essay for the Cambridge FCE exam, step
by step.
You’ll see exactly what to do at each stage
and how to get the best possible score.
There are four steps to the writing process.
You’ll see what to do at each step, then
you’ll learn how the writing is assessed.
I said there were four steps to the process.
So what’s first? First, you need to read
the task and identify exactly what needs to
be included.
Let’s look at a sample question: You’ve recently
had a discussion in English class about society.
Now your teacher has asked you to write an
essay.
Write an essay using all the notes and give
reasons for your point of view.
University should be free for everyone.
Do you agree or disagree?
Notes
Taxes
Opportunity
Your own idea
Okay, so what do you need to do?
Most importantly, you need to say if you agree
or disagree that university should be free
for everyone.
You also need to use all the notes and give
reasons for your point of view.
That means your essay needs to include three
central ideas: taxes, opportunity, and one
other.
It also means that you need to reach a clear,
justified conclusion.
You can’t just say, ‘I agree’, or ‘I
disagree.’
Think of it like this: you need to convince
the examiner that your conclusion is correct.
You might think at this point, ‘yeah, obvious,
thanks for the help, Kasia!’
Trust me; it’s harder than it sounds.
Many FCE essays that we see don’t get these
basic things right.
It’s very easy to leave something out, or
to go in the wrong direction.
Next, you’re writing this answer for your
teacher so what style do you think it will
be in?
Formal or informal?
An essay should be formal.
What does that mean?
Formal writing doesn’t use contractions,
like ‘I’d’, ‘you’re’ or ‘don’t’.
Write the full forms.
You should also avoid using slang, colloquial
vocabulary, or anything which sounds very
conversational.
Next, think: what do you need to include?
You need to talk about taxes, opportunity,
and you also need to add your own idea.
Even the ideas which are given to you—taxes
and opportunity—are quite vague.
That means you need to decide exactly what
to talk about.
You also need to think about how to connect
your ideas.
For example, with taxes you could say that
if you pay taxes, then this should go back
into society to benefit everyone.
You could add to this by pointing out that
having equal opportunities also benefits society.
And for your own idea, you could talk about
how people with higher education are more
likely to be economically productive.
This is just one example, of course!
There are many paths you could take.
Let’s talk about that in more detail.
Here’s what you need to do when you plan
your essay.
First, you need to decide what your conclusion
is going to be.
Are you going to agree or disagree that university
should be free for everyone?
Decide your conclusion first, because everything
else in your essay needs to lead to it.
Secondly, you need to plan how many paragraphs
you’re going to have, and what you’ll
put in each one.
Thirdly, you need to make sure your paragraphs
are connected to your conclusion.
Let’s see an example:
Pause the video if you want some more time
to read the plan.
You can see that we use the key idea of ‘education’
in the notes for each paragraph.
Doing this can help you to stay focused and
on-topic, because you’re connecting each
paragraph back to the main idea of the question.
When you plan, make sure that each paragraph
has a clear focus.
Do you know what every good paragraph starts
with?
A topic sentence.
What’s a topic sentence?
A topic sentence is the first sentence of
a paragraph.
It summarises the main point of the paragraph.
The sentences which follow are called supporting
sentences.
These include reasons and examples to support
your topic sentence.
A good exercise during planning is to take
a paragraph and think to yourself: “What’s
this paragraph about?”
If you can answer that question in one simple
sentence, then that’s a good sign.
Hopefully, your plan is clear.
However, if you can’t answer that question,
that shows that your plan isn’t totally
clear in your head.
Once you’ve finished your plan, you’re
ready to write your answer!
In your candidate answer book, you will now
write your essay.
Let’s look at a model answer:
Pause the video to read, and start again when
you’re ready.
First question: have we answered the question?
Yes: the conclusion states that free university
benefits all members of society.
This shows that we agree that university should
be free for everyone.
Next: have we used topic sentences?
Yes, we have.
The first sentence of the essay tells you
what the entire essay will be about.
Then, each paragraph’s topic sentence contains
a key word from our plan.
We have ‘taxes, ‘opportunities’ and
‘economy’.
Also, the topic sentences and paragraphs all
reference the idea of ‘education’, either
directly or indirectly.
This shows that our points are relevant and
connected to the task.
So, now you’re finished, right?
No–there’s one more step. This answer is not bad, but it could be better.
The final step is to check your answer.
What type of things do you think you should
look for?
Grammar, of course, but what else?
Check for spelling mistakes.
Check for style—have you used any conversational
language which doesn’t fit the tone of an
essay like this?
Check your use of linking words and phrases.
Many students overuse them; don’t use a
linking word like nevertheless unless you’re
sure it fits.
Check for repetition of vocabulary.
Could you replace any simple vocabulary with
something more advanced?
Look at our model answer again:
The underlined parts are either mistakes,
or they could be improved somehow.
How would you improve this?
Pause the video while you read and decide.
The first problem is with grammar.
Unless you’re talking about one specific
university, you don’t use ‘the’.
Okay, what’s wrong with doesn’t?
We’ve used a contraction!
Don’t use contractions in your essay.
So, it should be does not.
The next problem is a spelling mistake.
When a word ends in ‘y’, it changes to
‘ies’ in the plural.
Next is a punctuation mistake.
There’s a comma missing.
There are two clauses in this sentence and
they need to be separated by a comma.
There’s nothing wrong with people with degrees
but it’s quite basic.
What else could you say?
You could say educated people, or even highly-educated
people, either of which is slightly more elegant.
So is not a mistake, but we used ‘so’
in the second paragraph already.
You want to show the examiner your range of
language, so here you could use something
more precise like consequently.
Our conclusion is only one sentence, so let’s
add an extra point.
We’re still under the maximum word count.
Let’s change it to: In conclusion, free
university should be free for everyone.
It makes economic sense and ultimately benefits
all members of society.
At this point, it’s looking good!
Next, let’s focus on what you can do to
produce a good FCE essay which will get a
high score in your exam.
Your essay score is made up of four parts.
For each part, you get a score from zero to
five.
First there’s ‘Content’.
The mark scheme says this “focuses on how
well you have fulfilled the task”.
In other words, have you done everything you
were asked to do?
This corresponds to step one of our writing
process.
Analyse the task carefully and make sure you
do everything it asks you to.
A good tip is to underline the key words in
the task to help you identify what you need
to do.
Next there’s ‘Communicative Achievement’.
This “focuses on how appropriate your writing
is for the task”.
Have you used the correct register?
Have you used contractions?
Basically: does your essay look and sound
like an essay?
Then we have organisation.
This looks at “how the writing is put together”.
Is it logical and organised?
By planning your writing correctly, it will
already be organised.
Remember to plan your paragraphs carefully
and write a clear topic sentence at the beginning
of each paragraph.
You can also use linking words and phrases
to make the connections between paragraphs
even clearer.
In our essay, we used many linking words,
including firstly, secondly, in addition,
although, consequently and in conclusion.
Look through the essay again, and note how
the linking words and phrases are used.
Can you find any more examples of linking
words in the essay?
Finally, you have ‘Language’: vocabulary
and grammar.
The examiners will be looking for a range
of language as well as how accurate it is.
In step four, you saw how checking your essay
can improve your language.
Are you worried that making mistakes will
affect your mark?
Of course, making a lot of mistakes will lower
your mark, but remember this is only one part
of the score.
For B2 level, the Cambridge mark scheme says,
‘Occasional errors may be present but do
not impede communication.’
That means you can still score 5 from 5, even
with some small mistakes.
But, hopefully, you’ll catch most of them
when you’re on step four – checking and
improving your answer.
You’ve seen how to write an essay for FCE,
but you can use the same process for other
Cambridge exams, including the CAE and CPE
when you get that far.
If you enjoyed this lesson and would like
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Good luck with your exam preparation and let
us know when you pass!
Thanks for watching!