Preparing for English Language Tests: Tips and Strategies, Exams of Marketing

Download Preparing for English Language Tests: Tips and Strategies and more Exams Marketing in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Oxford Online Placement Test (OOPT) Print this out two pages per sheet. There is no need for color. Read it in front of your computer with the file open. There are lots of hyperlinks you can click on as you read. Summary Bring photo ID to the OOPT. Check the sound is turned on. It might be a good idea to do a course at your local VHS. Wiesbaden Mainz Frankfurt Buxtehude Listen to more English before the test. Try the Stitcher app. This document has lots of hyperlinks to the internet so read it on your computer and make sure you are online. Learn grammar from YouTube. Just search for ‘English grammar esl’. You can find the grammar areas you need below. Don’t be lazy. Don’t say: Man braucht doch kein Englisch! Don’t let the ‘Bestätigungsfehler‘ and the ‘Verfügbarkeitsheuristik’ fool you into thinking English is not important. Test your grammar by typing the grammar area + quiz into a search engine. For example, You are too old to learn English by ‘Sprachgefühl’. To get better at a language you have to know the details. I know it’s not easy to accept. But you are just too old. Start listening to Business Story of the Day from NPR. 2 Section 1: Frequently Asked Questions Is the test important? Yes, the test is important. The more work you put into preparing for it, the better the result you will get. The better the result you get on the test now, the easier your life will be at the WBS. For example, there are many exams at the WBS that you cannot register for unless you have a minimum number of OOPT points. Can I prepare for the test? Yes, you can. It is possible to prepare for the test by: 1) Learning more about the test format (section 2 of this document) 2) Working on specific areas of your English (section 3 of this document) It is in your interest to start working on your English now. Now. Not tomorrow. Now. Don’t forget it takes many hours of work to move up one level of English. As you can see in the visual below, the rough rule of thumb is that it takes 200 hours of classroom instruction plus 200 hours of learning at home to move up one level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. We cannot provide you with the amount of classroom instruction you need if your English is B1 or lower. You should consider doing a course at your local VHS. Most larger VHSs in Germany offer BEC Preliminary, BEC Vantage or FCE exam preparation courses. Your ultimate goal is C1, by the way. If you have high C1, you can say what you want and do what you want in a foreign language. If your English is already C1 consider doing the BEC Higher, CAE or ILETS exams to get a qualification recognized around the world. What do all these letter and number combinations mean? B2? C1? The letter-number combinations have replaced such expressions as beginner, intermediate, upper- intermediate etc. You can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages As a guide, most students who leave the German secondary education system should have the B2 level, or upper-intermediate. At the WBS, we assume that every student is at least a low B2 when they start in semester 1. You will need to work hard if this is not the case. A2 plus B1 You are an independent user but will still have problems, especially in unfamilair situations. B2 Ultimate goal Your fluency and accuracy of language use are sufficent to cope with all situations. C1 Native-speaker level C2 200 hours classroom instruction 200 hours classroom instruction 200 hours classroom instruction 200 hours self-study 200 hours self-study 200 hours self-study 5 3) If you entered everything correctly this is the next page you see. First name / last name Enter your first and last name in the exact same format as on your student ID. So if your name is Jennifer on your student card, enter that name, even if all your friends call you Jenny. Email You have to enter an email address. It doesn’t matter what email address you enter as we will not be sending you the results by email. But you have to enter one. If it won’t accept it, make up an email address: Dfsfssdsdfsdf@yahoo.com, or student@student.com First language Don’t worry too much if you are not sure. Just put in the language you feel most comfortable speaking. Program Select IBA, BBA, BBL etc. from the drop-down menu. Semester Select your current semester form the drop-down menu. Test date Use the British English format: DD.MM.YY Student ID Number = matriculation number from the WBS on your student ID if you have one. Click save and then confirm your save. 4) After you click save you will see this page. Just click on the Oxford Online Placement Test and a new window will open. If it doesn’t open, allow pop- ups. 5) Select your starting level For most students it’s simpler to pick the Mid-level starting point. In fact, it doesn’t really matter. The test is adaptive. It reacts to the questions you get right and wrong to decide what questions to give you next. If you get the first few questions right at the mid-level the system will start asking you harder questions until it finds your level. If you get the first few questions wrong, the system will start asking you easier questions until it finds your level. 6 The test The test is divided into two parts: 1) The first part tests your Use of English. 2) The second part tests your Listening skills. The exact number of questions you have to answer depends on you. After one or two mid-level questions, the test will start giving you slightly harder questions and keep giving you slightly harder questions until you start getting questions wrong. That borderline between where you get questions right and get questions wrong is your score. The more inconsistent you are, the longer the test will take to judge your English level. So if you get some mid- level questions right but others wrong, the system will need to ask you more questions to make sure what level you are. Please note: There is a time limit. When you have only 15 minutes left, you will see this message. If you leave a space blank you will see this error message. You cannot go back to questions you skipped. 7 Section 1: Use of English In section 1, there are three main types of questions. Type 1 You can see an example of the first type of question on the right. What does it test? These questions will be testing your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Format There is a short conversation and a dropdown menu gives you a choice of four answers. How to tackle such questions 1) Try to recognize the grammar or vocabulary area that is being tested The question will be testing an area of grammar or vocabulary. Try to work out what type of answer they are looking for before you click to see the four choices. Very often it is easy to recognize the type of grammar they are looking for. For example: Example 1: Man: It’s very hot in here. Woman: Yes, it’s boiling. Man: Would you mind ……………….. the window? After the expression “would you mind”, you normally have the gerund, or –ing form of the verb. So the correct answer will probably end in –ing. In fact, you have probably already worked out that the missing word is ‘opening’. 2) Read the whole conversation Concentrate on the words after the gap. Many students just read up to the gap and then pick the first answer that seems correct. This is not a good idea. Example 2: Man: Should we go for a walk Wählen Sie ein Element aus. the rain? Woman: Why not? The forecast says it will stop soon. Man: Let’s go in an hour then. In this case, it is crucial that you realize the importance of the fact that the word after the gap is a noun (the rain). Of the four choices only one: 1) is correct in its form. The expression is ‘in spite of’, not ‘in spite’, so ‘in spite’ is wrong. 2) fits the meaning. Only ‘even though’ and ‘despite’ fit the meaning of the sentence. 3) fits the grammar of being followed by a noun. So which is the correct answer? ‘Even though’ or ‘despite’? 10 Listening Put on your headphones and double check the sound is on. You can play each recording twice. On very rare occasions the recording won’t play a second time. In this case, just pick an answer at random and move onto the next question. If it happens again, put your hand up and inform the teacher. Keep in mind it is technically impossible for the teacher to replay a question. The only remedy would be to let you retake the test from the beginning. There are two types of questions Type 1: Only one question per recording Type 2: There are two questions per recording Technique: 1) Listen for meaning not words They are testing your understanding of meaning. They are not testing your ability to hear words that you have just read. Don’t assume that if you hear the same word(s) in the recording as you have read in the answers that this is the correct choice. In most cases, but not all, the correct answer will not use any of the words in the recording. 2) As you read the answers, think of synonyms for the words Let’s imagine this was one of the answers: A The venue proved more suitable than ones used previously. As you read, think of some possible alternatives for these words. Venue = location, or something specific such as hotel or conference hall. Proved= turned out to be Suitable = appropriate Ones= location, or something specific such as hotel, conference. Previously = in the past, or something specific such as last year. If you are lucky you will hear these words in the recording. 11 3) Some of the answers are indirect, especially as they get harder A man and a woman are shopping for a new kitchen Man: What about this kitchen? It has everything we need. Woman: Our curtains are green. What is the woman trying to say? It’s not so easy to tell. What do you think? Answer: She is rejecting this kitchen as a good choice because of the color. Obviously, the color of the kitchen does not match the green color of the curtains they already have. Check with the person overseeing the test to see if you have to switch off the computer. In most cases: Don’t turn off the computer. Just click ‘abmelden’. 12 Section 3: How to prepare for the test You probably have a few days between reading this and sitting the test. Use the time wisely. Use of English From the material above, you can see that the main areas tested in this part of the exam are: 1) The range and accuracy of your grammar 2) The range and accuracy of your vocabulary 3) How well you know phrasal verbs 4) How well you know English idioms 5) If you can recognize irony and sarcasm 1) Grammar The range and accuracy of grammar is an important indicator of how good your English is. Accuracy means not making mistakes in use, but range is just an important. The more complicated the issues you want to express in English, the more complicated the areas of grammar you will need to master. What can you do to improve your grammar? Google Take a look at the three areas of grammar below. These are some examples of the areas of grammar you should be good at to get a good score on the OOPT. 1) Gerund Explanations: I. http://video.about.com/esl/Learn-ESL--What-Is-the-English-Gerund-.htm II. http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/gerundsum.html Quizzes: I. http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-gerunds_quiz.htm II. http://academic.cuesta.edu/ahalderma/gerinfinq.htm 2) Future tenses: present simple and continuous used for the future, future continuous, future perfect and future perfect continuous Explanations: I. http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/fcont.htm II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udNmaJFwHE4 Quizzes: I. http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/blgrquiz_futureforms.htm II. http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/tenses/future.htm 3) Present perfect continuous and past perfect continuous Explanations: I. http://www.ego4u.de/de/cram-up/grammar/present-perfect-progressive II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVUXVaqnolY To find the explanations above, all we did was Google the grammar area. The first time we just typed in the name of grammar area to get the explanations. So typing gerund plus explanation got us some good results. 15 2) Vocabulary There are two important issues here. I. Changing the words you learn II. Changing the way you learn new words I) Changing the words you learn It might sound strange but you should stop learning words you don’t know. Instead, you should concentrate on turning your passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. One of the simplest ways to do this is to keep your eye open for collocations. A collocation 1 is two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong". For example, English speakers in German often say “Ich habe ein Bild genommen” because they are translating a collocation from English “to take a photo” directly into German, where it just sounds “wrong”. In general, collocations are easy to understand and therefore easy to learn if you take the trouble to do so. So how good is your knowledge of collocations? First learn more about them here: http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/collocations-samples.htm Now let’s do a quick quiz: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/quiznet/pdfs/109_common_collocations.pdf Here some of the main types of collocations i) Verb-noun collocations Below you can see some potential verb-noun collocations with the verb to run. How many of them are correct in English? To run + noun Yes No Can you run a car? Can you run an experiment? Can you run a bath? Can you run a risk? Can you run a company? Here are some more verb-noun collocations for you to test your knowledge: i. http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/strategy/openclze/pt2finalc.htm ii. http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/collocations-quiz-do-make.htm ii) Noun/adjective plus noun collocations How many of the following are correct? To run + noun Yes No Can you have a stop-gap solution? Can you have a debatable point? Can you have a frank discussion? Can you have a vested interest? Test your knowledge here: i. http://www.englishmedialab.com/cloze/Adjective%20noun%20collocation/index.html In fact, all of the combinations in the two tables above are correct. 1 http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/collocations.htm [accessed on 13 SEP 2010] 16 II) Changing the way you learn words First stop using online dictionaries to look up new words. There are numerous problems with this approach: 1) The words only go into your short-term memory Like looking at your watch, you will have forgotten the word in a few seconds. Only your short-term memory is activated. It can be hard to remember words even a few seconds after you learnt them. 2) Without a context it’s hard to pick the right translation So what does it mean below when they define a connoisseur as someone with expert knowledge and keen discrimination? Check out leo.org and look for the correct translation. It’s not the first one. It is tempting to take the first translation. However, the correct translation for the context is farther down the list: Urteilsvermögen Try using Linguee.de instead. The sentences provide context and help you select the right translation. 3) Recording vocabulary You should try and expand the information you record about words you want to learn. Many of you will have a Vokabelheft. But the information tends to be limited to a simple translation, with no context to help understands the meaning of the word. Try and fill in the missing information in the box below. The word you want to record is churn. Where did you see the word? Copy in context. Use it in a sentence Synonym/antonym Also known as employee turnover. Opposite is retention. Verb/noun/adjective/adverb Write word here Churn Not to be confused with Definition (your own words) 1. Number of employees who leave a company Translation Write related words here Draw a picture of it 17 3) Phrasal verbs Understanding phrasal verbs Verbs are often followed by adverbs or prepositions (= particles) such as back, off, through, up etc. Sometimes both verb and particle have their normal meaning: It took 20 minutes to go through passport control. Other times there is a new, often more abstract meaning when the verb and particle are put together: Can we go through those figures again? (= look carefully at/examine) Phrasal verbs are common in informal, spoken English. Quite often a phrasal verb will have a more formal, one- word equivalent which is used more in written English: find out >>> discover go on >>> continue Often one phrasal verb can have several different meanings and the correct one is only clear from the situation: Don’t worry, I’m dealing with it now. (= I’m taking the necessary action) We deal mainly with Taiwanese companies. (= we do business with) The report deals with our future strategy. (is about) Complete the following email using the phrasal verbs from the box (in the correct form) which mean the same as the words in brackets. do without look into run out of take up call on check in hold on look after break down turn up Hi Amanda The service lift in the warehouse has (stopped working) ……………………………. again. Could you please get the Otis engineer to (investigate) …………………………. what has gone wrong and to fix it ASAP? This is urgent because we really can’t (manage if we don’t have) ………………………………….. it. We’re having to move everything upstairs by hand and this is (occupying) …………………………………. a lot of time and pretty soon everyone is going to (have no more) ………………………. patience. We’re expecting Mr Takashi from Japan sometime this afternoon. I have rung the hotel but he hasn’t (registered his arrival) ……………………………….. there yet, so he may just (arrive unexpectedly) ………………………………. at the office. If he does, could you (take care of) ………………………………… him and ask him to (wait) ………………………… until I get back? I have to (visit) ………………………… a client at about 2.30 pm but I should be back by 3.15 pm. In the following sentences, choose the best option from the a-d. 1. The latest iPads are expensive, but if you wait, prices will ……………………. down. a. back b. run c. turn d. come 2. I agree, and if they criticise you at the meeting, I will back you ……………… a. up b. down c. in d. out 3. By the way, I ………………………….. into Siti in York and she sends you her regards. a. looked b. turned c. came d. ran 20 Listening The problem is we never really hear everything. We think we do. But we don’t. If someone said: He works here in Wie…… . Your brain would fill in Wiesbaden so fast they you might not even notice you didn’t hear the complete word. This works very well in our native language but we need to train our brain to do this in a foreign one. After all, listening is one of the four basic language skills. And it is one of the easiest skills to improve. Here are two broad strategies for preparing for this part of the test: 1) Listen to more English in your everyday life 2) Practice exam-style questions Making English part of your everyday life You should try to make 30% of your life English – listening to English radio, watching English TV. Podcasts Nowadays, most of you will carry some means of playing music with you. If this device can play music you can also play podcasts. Try the Stitcher App. Click on the graphic and follow the link. Try the Filmon App. You can watch many English-language TV shows for free. If you have AppleTV you can even watch them on your television. The BBC offers some great podcasts. Check out their site here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts Search under genres for the topics that interest you personally. Some of the podcast are specially for learners of English such as: 1) English at work 2) 6 minute English The best thing to do is to subscribe to the podcast. You can, of course, use ITunes, but there are other services available, such as Juice or Stitcher. Below, you will find a list of interesting podcasts from the BBC. Each of the graphics has a hyperlink that will take you to respective website if you hold down ‘strg’ and click on the left mouse button. 21 Here are three podcasts from NPR in America. Each of the pictures has a hyperlink that will take you to the website where you can subscribe to the podcast. Movies Simply watching movies in English is too passive. A simple trick is to switch on the subtitles and compare what you are reading to what you are hearing. This works well in all combinations. 1. Watch in German, subtitles in English. 2. Watch in English, subtitles in German. 3. Even watching in English with the subtitles in English works well, as the subtitles are never exactly the same as the text the actors are speaking. 22 Using exam preparation material To really train your ear for exam-style questions you can search the internet for exam-preparation material. There are many tests of English out there. Most of them have a listening component. Therefore, there are many free resources on the internet to help you get ready for such exams. Here is one for the Cambridge First Certificate Exam, or FCE: http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/firstcertificate/contenidotem atico.htm You can find a lot of material on YouTube. For the FCE exam (B2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS2MlTTyWe8 For the IELTS exam (C1) Episode 15: Listening for signpost words http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1Tzn3UqV0 Episode 16: Listening for numbers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqS8SZD6gIs&NR=1