Writing a Story for the B1 Preliminary Exam: Structure and Useful Language, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Writing a Story for the B1 Preliminary Exam: Structure and Useful Language e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! HOW TO WRITE A STORY Part 1 of the the Writing exam in B1 Preliminary is always an email. You can't choose this task, but in the second part of the test you can decide if you want to write an article or a story. In every story task you get one sentence which has to be the first sentence of your story and the text has to be related to this. Your language should be neutral to informal. [What does a typical story task look like? | Wnhenever you get ready for a writing task in the PET exam, you need to think about a few questions. These questions help you understand the task better and make a plan for your story. 1. What is the situation? What do I have to include in my story? Who is going to read my story? Let's have a look at a typical example task and see how we can answer the questions above. Your teacher has asked you to write a story. Your story must begin with this sentence: As the plane flew lower, Lou saw the golden beaches of the island below. Write a story. You can see that there isn't a lot of information, but we still have to check the task very carefully so we know exactly what to do. In the given sentence a person called Lou is on a plane flying over an island and he's looking at the beaches. The plane is going lower so it might be getting ready to land. The second S ivihine is a little bit more open than the first one because The only restriction, again, is the first sentence and the situation that comes with it. You and include whatever you can imagine, Last but not least, your English teacher is going to read your story. In other writing tasks you need to be very careful with your language, but in a story you are freer. You decide if your characters use very formal English or if they are informal. Just remember, don't use rude language or words that are not in the dictionary. You see, E that the have when ti Write a story, but, at the same time, you and that you are careful with your language because the rules are not as strict as in an email or article. [How to organise your story | The good thing about B1 Preliminary writing tasks is that you can always organise them in the same way. It is a little bit like a good cooking recipe because it works every time. A good story usually has a beginning, a main part and an ending. The main part is the most important one so you want make it longer than the other parts. Most of the time, we get to a structure that looks like this: First sentence / Beginning Main part paragraph 1 Main part paragraph 2 Ending Of course, you might have three main part paragraphs, but in most tasks the structure with only two works very well. Always plan your story If you start to write your story without thinking about it first, you might run into some big problems. You can't really change everything once you've started because you only have 45 minutes to write your story AND an email. That's why you should always make a plan. Use the structure above and just add a few ideas so it works like amap. You will know exactly where your story is going and you only have to worry about using good language. [he different parts of a story Now, we are going to find out what the different parts of a story typically look like and | will give you some useful tips about good language that will help you get good marks. First sentence / Beginning As | said above, in a PET story you always have to start with a sentence that you get directly from the task. Don't change this sentence in any way, but simply copy it onto you answer sheet and begin your story from there. I recommend adding one more sentence to complete the beginning of your story. For our example task this could look like this: When we look at the first sentence from the task, there are a couple of things that are not 100% clear. For example, why was Lou on the plane? What island did he see? Why did the plane fly lower? In my second sentence | tried to make things a little bit clearer. Lou was on his way to spend his holidays on the island and the plane was getting ready for landing. In terms of good language, | used past continuous (was shining), which we use to say what was happening in the background or at the same time as our main events. | also included an adverb (brightly) and an adjective (golden), which makes an action more interesting, and there is some direct speech (“I'm so excited about my holidays!"). This brings the reader closer to the characters compared to indirect or reported speech. Always try to make sure to set the scene. Give some background information (past continuous) to introduce the main character(s). Add some adjectives and adverbs as well as direct speech because this makes the reader feel more interested in your story and they want to keep reading. [Main paragraphs Once we set the scene, we can move on to the main part of the story. Here, we try to develop the plot and all the main events happen in these paragraphs. You can decide how many paragraphs you want to make, but in general you should be fine with two or three of them. For our example task | chose two paragraphs: I tried to let the plot grow a little bit in my first main paragraph and, at the same time, create some excitement for the reader. Lou wants to go to the beach, but when | use the word ‘however’ to