Study tips for FCE: Paper 3 Use of English

Paper 3 Use of English (1 hour 15 minutes)

There are five parts in this paper. All parts except Part 3 are based on a short text and you should read through each text two or three times to familiarise yourself with it before answering individual questions. Questions 1-30 and 41-65 (in parts 1, 2, 4 and 5) carry one mark, and questions 31-40 (in part 3) carry two marks each.

Part 1 Multiple-choice cloze

• Read the text through first to get a good idea of what it is about.

• Think about the meaning of the missing word.

• Look at the words before and after the gap and think about why some of the options will not fit in the gap. You will often have to think about the grammar of these words.

• Try to eliminate three of the options before choosing the correct one.

• Read the whole text through after you have written your answers to make sure your answers make sense.

Part 2 Open cloze

• Look at the title and read the text through to get a good idea of what it is about.

• Think about what part of speech (verb, preposition, conjunction, etc.) each missing word could be.

• Think about different words that could fit in the gap and then choose the one that fits best in the context of the sentence and the text as a whole.

• When you have filled all the gaps, read the text through to make sure everything makes sense.

Part 3 'Key' word-transformation

• Think about the first sentence and different ways of expressing the same idea.

• Remember your answer will include at least two but not more than five words.

• Think about what grammar or vocabulary points are being tested; e.g. change an active form to a passive form, and all the changes you will have to make in completing the second sentence.

• Using the 'key' word will involve you in making more than one change to the original sentence, e.g. with the 'key' word 'instead', 'rather than go' becomes 'instead of going'.

Part 4 Error correction

• Read the whole text through first.

• Read each sentence carefully before deciding whether there is a mistake in the line.

• Read as if you are looking for mistakes. Ask yourself questions like: 'Do we need an article or preposition, etc. here?' 'Should this verb be active or passive?'

• Remember that some things may look grammatically correct, but they may not be correct in the context.

• Remember you are only looking for words which must be removed because they make the sentence ungrammatical.

Part 5 Word formation

• Read through the whole text first to find out what it is about.

• First decide what part of speech is needed in the gap.

• When you have decided what type of word it is, e.g. noun or verb, decide whether you have to add a grammatical ending, e.g. make it plural or add -ing.

• Also think about the meaning of the text and whether you have to add a prefix, e.g. make a positive form negative by adding a prefix.

• Think carefully about spelling and whether the spelling of the word you are forming needs to vary from the word you are given.

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