You have no doubt been hard at work all year preparing students for one or more of these exams, so we’d like to share a few last-minute tips and revision ideas for each part of the exam.
One great thing about these exams is that they are communicative and reward students for what they can do (rather than taking points away for wrong answers). This means studying for them also improves a student’s level of English. However, there is solid recent evidence that some exam training (as little as four hours) with a focus on exam strategies, understanding the exam and task types can reduce anxiety, improve time management and have a positive impact on a candidate’s performance.*
Here are some teaching ideas and tips for each paper.
Speaking
- Idea: Print out sample speaking tests and put students into groups of four. In each group, two students act as candidates, one as the interlocutor and one as the examiner. Recreate the real exam situation as closely as possible (interlocutors will have a pen, paper and a timer as well as the exam material and script. Examiners will sit behind the interlocutor at another table). After each exam, students swap roles so that everyone has the opportunity to act as interlocutor and examiner and do two speaking tests as candidates. Encourage the examiners to make notes and give brief, positive feedback after each exam.
Roleplaying the exam in this way helps students become familiar with the structure, timing and expectations of the speaking test. By stepping into the role of interlocutor, they also gain a clearer understanding of the tasks and the types of questions that may be asked. Practising in this way can reduce exam anxiety and allow students to perform more confidently.
- Tip: Tell B1 to C1 students to disagree as well as agree with each other in the collaborative task. This should naturally elicit more language.
Listening
Training students to identify and ignore distractors can significantly improve accuracy, particularly in B1-C1 multiple-choice tasks.
- Idea: Put students into small groups and give each group a different part of the transcript of a listening task. Ask the groups to write two questions, each with three options. One answer should be correct and the other two should be plausible but incorrect. Get them to highlight the evidence for the correct answer and underline the plausible distractors in the transcript. Share the questions and multiple choices, take away the transcripts and do the whole listening task as a class.
This kind of analysis helps students become more aware of what they are being tested on. By identifying distractors, students are less likely to choose them in future exam tasks.
- Tip: Remind students that in the test, they shouldn’t choose an answer just because they hear the same words as in the options. Encourage them to listen for meaning, contrast and changes in opinion. They shouldn’t leave any question unanswered as there are no negative points in these exams.
Reading
- Idea: Turn synonym and substitution work into a quick ‘text detective’ challenge. Before class, make a list of key words and phrases in the questions that are expressed differently in an example text (e.g. synonyms, more general/specific words, or substitution such as ‘one/ones’ to substitute nouns, ‘do’ to substitute verbs and ‘so’ to substitute clauses). Give out the text and the list and ask students find evidence by matching the key words in your list with the relevant words and expressions in the text. Finally, give out the questions and then ask if the previous task helped them identify the correct answers.
This activity helps students understand how texts avoid repetition and how exam questions often paraphrase information rather than repeat it directly. This kind of focused strategy work can reduce confusion and support more confident, accurate reading.
- Tip: Students can use highlighters (different colours for each question) to match parts of the text to questions. Tell students to read the whole text quickly for general understanding before looking at the questions. Highlighters are allowed in Cambridge exams.
Writing
When starting a writing task, many candidates want to start straight away and they end up with a text that lacks coherence because of this. So, we should encourage students to plan what they are going to write
- Idea: Put a typical exam writing prompt on the board such as:
‘Your English friend wants to visit your town. Write an email suggesting things to do’.
Have students write only a plan. Tell them to write three bullet points of what they will include in their email. Then have students swap plans with a partner and give them 10 minutes to write the actual email based solely on their partner’s plan.
- Tip: Write an incorrect answer to an exam question to demonstrate task achievement. Make sure the language is perfect, but that it doesn’t answer the question in any way. Ask students to say whether it would get a good mark or not.
Final Thoughts
With some training based on the requirements of the exam, and their (and your!) hard work in bringing up their language level, students can go into their exam confident that they can do their best and demonstrate everything they have learned with you.
Wishing all your students the best of luck in their exams!
* Seo, J.-Y. (2025). Test-taking strategy instruction and TOEIC reading comprehension: strategy-use differences in EFL college students. Teaching English Language, 20(1), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.22132/tel.2025.486022.
