The B1 Preliminary story gives you a first sentence and asks for about 100 words that continue it. It is the riskier of the two Part 2 choices and the more rewarding: a story lets you show past continuous, past perfect and direct speech in a way an article never will, but only if it has a problem and an ending rather than a list of events.
Note the tense, the names and the situation. If the sentence says ‘When Marco opened the door, he knew something was wrong’, your story must start at that door and that moment, not an hour earlier.
Situation, problem, ending. Write three words in the margin. One hundred words does not hold more than three beats, and candidates who plan five never reach the last one.
Knowing the last line lets you steer. Without it you will use 90 words on setting and have ten left for a resolution that then has to be ‘and then I woke up’.
Put something happening in the first two sentences: a phone ringing, a train pulling away, a letter on the mat. Description with nothing occurring uses your words without advancing anything.
‘It was raining and the streets were empty’ costs eight words and shows a tense the examiner is looking for. Then switch to the past simple for what happened.
One sentence such as ‘She realised she had left her keys inside’ demonstrates the form. More than two becomes confusing at this level.
‘“We can’t stay here,” he said.’ It breaks up the narration, shows punctuation you control, and moves the story on in six words.
Resolve the problem and say how someone felt about it. An ending that names a feeling reads as finished; one that simply stops does not.
Not thisI was walking home when suddenly I have seen a dog.
ThisI was walking home when suddenly I saw a dog.
The present perfect cannot be used for a finished event at a stated moment in a narrative. Stories run on the past simple.
Not thisShe goed to the door and finded a letter.
ThisShe went to the door and found a letter.
Irregular past forms appear on every line of a story, so a candidate who guesses them loses marks repeatedly rather than once.
Not thisThe story described a whole holiday in 100 words.
ThisThe story described one afternoon of that holiday.
Too much plot forces summary. One small incident, told properly, shows far more language.
Not thisWhen I arrived, the train already left.
ThisWhen I arrived, the train had already left.
The earlier of two past events takes the past perfect. This is the single sentence pattern that most improves a B1 story.
Not this…and then I woke up and it was all a dream.
This…and by the time we got home, we were both laughing about it.
The dream ending cancels the story and reads as a way of escaping the word limit.
Not thisHe said me that he was late.
ThisHe told me that he was late.
‘Tell’ takes a person; ‘say’ does not. Reported speech appears in almost every story.
Not thisIt was a good day. The food was good and the weather was good.
ThisIt was a warm, slow afternoon and the food was better than we had expected.
One repeated adjective shows no range at all, and range is a marked category.
40 original questions. The first 10 are open to everyone. Answers are checked in your browser and never sent to us, so you can share this page with a class as it is.
1Complete with the past simple of one verb.
4Complete with one auxiliary verb.
6Complete with one adverb.
7Your first sentence is: ‘When Jamie opened the letter, he could not believe what it said.’ Write the next two sentences.
One good answer
It was from a company he had applied to months earlier, and he had almost forgotten about it. They wanted him to start on Monday — in a city four hundred miles away.
9Complete with the past simple of one verb.
11Complete with the past simple of one verb.
14Complete with one word.
15Write one sentence using the past continuous and the past simple together.
One good answer
I was waiting outside the cinema when a woman I had never met handed me an umbrella and walked away.
16Complete with the past simple of one verb.
18Complete with one adjective.
21Complete with one word.
23Complete with one word.
25Write the last two sentences of a story in which two friends get lost on a walk and are found.
One good answer
Just as it was getting dark, we heard a dog barking and saw a torch moving between the trees. Neither of us said much on the way back, but we were both very glad to see the car.
26Complete with the past simple of one verb.
28Complete with the past simple of one verb (British spelling).
30Complete with one noun.
33Complete with the -ing form of one verb.
35Your first sentence is: ‘The bus was already moving when Sofia saw the bag on the seat.’ Write two sentences continuing it.
One good answer
She picked it up and looked round, but the woman who had been sitting there was already walking away down the street. Sofia pressed the bell and hoped the driver would stop in time.
36Complete with the past simple of one verb.
38Complete with the past participle of one verb.
Note
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Choose the one you have practised. The story rewards past tenses and imagination; the article rewards structure and opinions. Deciding in the exam room costs you five minutes you cannot spare.
Yes, and it is often easier, because you remember the detail. Just make sure it continues the given first sentence and fits into one hundred words.
It is not required, but one line is a cheap way to show punctuation and break up the narration. Two or three lines start to eat your word limit.
Use the simplest one available: the problem is solved, or it is not, and someone feels something about it. An ordinary ending written well beats a clever one you cannot finish.
A sentence or two. Description that does not move the story forward is the first thing to cut when you are running out of words.