Continuing the series of sample writing tasks for English language examinations at B1 or B2 level, let's turn to informal or friendly letters and emails.  There are a number of informal letters that candidates are expected to know how to write, each of which focuses on a specific goal. The most common types of friendly letters or emails are: asking for information / news giving information /news asking for advice giving advice invitations accepting / refusing an invitation letters of apology congratulating someone thanking someone Many more kinds of letters/emails exist (job applications or letters of complaint), but they wouldn't fall under the category of informal writing.  In this post, the writing task requires candidates to draft a letter to a friend that gives him or her advice on a particular issue.

  This is a short letter of complaint aimed at helping ESL/EFL candidates at B2 level tackle a writing task which asks them to write a letter or email complaining about a product or service. Before you read any sample dealing with complaints, you might find it helpful to take a quick look at some useful phrases to include in these kinds of letters, which I gathered in an earlier post of mine (click on the image below) on how to write letters of complaint.

ESL/EFL exams may contain writing tasks that require students to write a review of a film or book.  This is an example of a film review intended to give candidates and teachers a springboard for vocabulary exercises and discussions about the organization of reviews.  The topic dealt with in this post is the following: 

Studyi ng Engl ish g rammar is seldom exciting. Nevertheless, it is something that s tudents who are preparing to sit an Engl ish examination at B2 level need to do as the exam (be it the ECCE, MSU-CELP, L RN, ESB, or FCE F i rst for Schools) is likely to include a separate section entirely devoted to it. Regardless of the test's format, proper use of the English language in writing and speaking is required for a candidate to achieve a passing score , so careful and organized study of grammar is needed, no matter what.  Which is why the following list was drawn up for both teachers and students. If a B2 exam candidate is able to outline the rules that apply to each and every element on this list, then passing the exam should not be an issue. The reason for this is because they will be able to a) recognize the grammatical construct examined in a particular question of the exam (for instance, in the multiple choice questions of the grammar section of the ECCE or M...