In this webinar, Gary Anderson discussed how using practice tests can help your candidates improve their exam performance and which types of preparation best suit your teaching situation(s): online, paper-based or exam practice with additional training. Gary also took a look at a range of official Cambridge English exam preparation materials including the new online Cambridge English Practice Testbank.
Practice may not make you perfect, but it will definitely make you better – and this is especially important when it comes to exams such as Cambridge English.
With no extra practice, it is not unusual for your students to struggle with parts of the exam. Teachers who attended our webinar reported that their students found writing to be the most difficult skill, which is not surprising – students usually find productive skills (such as writing and speaking) more difficult than receptive ones (such as reading and listening). With that in mind, how can we help our students to improve their exam performance? Here are some top tips:
- Have your class take a complete mock exam as diagnostic assessment.
- Following the mock exam, determine which Papers or parts of Papers proved challenging to your students as a class or individually. Practicing these tests will help your students build confidence and improve their English at the same time.
- Conduct a final complete mock exam before sitting real exam in exam conditions, so your students will know what to expect.
- If you’re using a general coursebook, make sure you are familiar with the format of Cambridge English exams and practice every part of each Paper with your students.
These steps will help you build your students’ confidence for speaking and writing tests by visualising exam conditions and plenty of practice. If you want to hear more tips for preparing your students for Cambridge English exams, as well as find out about how our Testbank preparation suite can help you and your students, watch the webinar recording below: