C2 Proficiency Writing practice: essay, article, report
C2 Proficiency Writing is two tasks in ninety minutes: a compulsory essay that summarises and evaluates two short texts, and one task of your choice from an article, a report, a review or a letter. Marks come from content, communicative achievement, organisation and language, and the last two are where C2 candidates separate themselves from C1 ones.
What this paper asks of you
- Summarising two arguments in your own words without copying the source wording.
- Evaluating rather than merely reporting: saying which argument holds and why.
- Holding a consistent register across a whole answer, including the final sentence.
- Cohesion beyond the linker: reference, substitution, given-before-new ordering.
- Genre conventions: what a review does that a report must not, and the reverse.
- Nominalisation and complex noun phrases as a way of packing information in efficiently.
- Hedging and boosting, so claims are as strong as the evidence and no stronger.
- Paragraph shape: a topic sentence that makes a claim, then support, then a consequence.
- Planning and word count discipline under a strict ninety-minute limit.
- Accuracy at speed, since a wide range of structures used inaccurately scores lower than a narrower range used well.
Task types, one page each
- Essay from two textsC2 Proficiency essay practice: how to summarise and evaluate two short texts in one essay, with forty original items on summary, evaluation and register.40 questions
- ArticleC2 Proficiency article practice: forty original items on openings, direct address, tone and rhetorical technique for the Part 2 article task.40 questions
- ReportC2 Proficiency report practice: forty original items on headings, neutral register, evidence-based recommendations and the structure examiners expect.40 questions
- ReviewC2 Proficiency review practice: forty original items on description, evaluation, recommendation and the confident critical voice the review task needs.40 questions
- Formal letterC2 Proficiency formal letter practice: forty original items on openings, closings, tone, complaint and application language for the Part 2 letter.40 questions
Note
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