The Smarter Way to Prepare for the Cambridge Advanced Exam

5 things I would do to prepare for any English exam.

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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to your Cambridge Advanced Accelerator podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I'm here to help you with all things Cambridge Advanced exam related. So I hope you've all had a great weekend and let's get this week off to an absolutely fantastic start. So, what is our topic this week? What we're going to be speaking about. Today I want to talk a little bit about the accelerator method. Now, this is what we use on all my courses with all my students at any level at B2, at C1, or at C2, is the accelerator method. And this is what has helped us have a 99.4% pass rate since 2023. And I was kind of thinking about this as we have had a couple of students or several students do their exam over the past uh few weeks, and I thought it was an important kind of thing to review, thing to remind ourselves of is some of the five key steps in the accelerator method, and um and how you guys can add them into your study schedule if you're not indeed doing so already. Okay, so first step in the accelerator method, and I go on and on and on about this, I bang on about it in um in the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator course all the time, is to work on your weaknesses. Do not work your way through a course book or work your way through hundreds and hundreds of mock exams. Okay, um what we always want to do, the principles of everything we do, is to do a mock exam under exam conditions, check your mock exam and work out what your strengths and your weaknesses are, and you want to spend time working on those weaknesses one at a time, okay. If there are 10 weaknesses that you need to work on, do not jump between them all in one day, okay? Work on them one at a time, one weakness a week, uh until it is no longer a weakness, until it's a strength, and then move on to the next thing. Okay, this is a principle on everything that I do is we work on your weaknesses, we build a custom study plan to work on the things that you need, and we only test again, we only do another mock exam after about four to six weeks, giving you a chance to improve on the things that you need to improve on. Okay, a common error that students make is just doing mock exam after mock exam after mock exam without doing that uh analysis step and that um working on the weakness in between. Because if we just keep doing mock exam, mock exam after mock exam without thinking about why we got some things wrong, then we're just going to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over. I mean, what's that famous quote? Is it uh is insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, right? So if we just keep on doing practice test after practice test um without changing anything, and we expect that we're going to get better, then um it's it's a bit irrational. We have to fix things uh in order to see our results uh improve and progress. Which brings me to point number two, which I touched upon a second ago, was the analysis and feedback stage. Okay, so so important, and not just when you're doing mock exams, but when you're doing any exam task, okay, or indeed any kind of um English task at all. Uh whether it's like um going to a speaking session or doing a grammar gap fill or doing a reading part seven task, whatever it is. Always, always analyze the task afterwards. And by analyze, I don't just mean check your answers that oh I got six out of eight. That's good. Okay, let's let's do another one, uh, or let's move on to the next task. That's not analysis, this is just correcting your answers, and this is where most students and unfortunately most teachers stop is just correction and that's it. Okay, they miss this next step, um, which is the most important thing to do, is analyzing your answers, analyzing your errors and thinking about why we got those wrong, breaking it down into the very small details of why we got that wrong. Okay, um, so for example, if we're doing a listening task, listening part four, this is the one that uh most people find the most difficult. Uh, listening part four is that one at the end where you have to do the two tasks at the same time, listening to five people speaking. So if we're getting that task, uh if we're making errors with that task, okay, our analysis should not be I'm bad at listening. I need to improve my listening skills. This does not give you much information to help you improve for next time because that might mean that you just go and oh, I'm gonna listen to some podcasts or watch some TV in English to practice my listening skills. We need to break that down further into what exactly is causing the issue with that listening part four. And it's almost always one of these things. It's either going to be exam technique, so that we're not where we find it quite challenging to do um the multitasking, reading the questions, doing the two tasks at once as well as listening. This could be one of the issues. Um if that's the case, then we need to find the best technique for you to improve on that. And there are several techniques um that I teach in the accelerator method to help with this, but it everybody's different, so it's finding the right technique for you. Okay, so this could be one thing. The second thing is it could be a vocabulary issue, um, and this again we shouldn't be analyzing and saying, oh, it's vocabulary, I need to work on vocabulary. Vocabulary is a very broad topic. What specifically, what topic is it that was causing you issues? If the topic was um uh dolphins, again, I don't know why Cambridge exams love weird animals, nature, plants, they love these topics in the exam. In fact, we had a student do their exam today. I'm filming this on Sunday. Uh, we did it had a student do their exam today, and they just wrote in our our uh community group what topics came up in the exam. Let me see if I can uh find that for you. Uh so topics that appeared uh in the exam today were snow leopards, again, weird animals. Um women in space, glaciers, fossils, nature, and the London Underground. Some random topics appeared in um we had I think four students doing the exams in the past couple weeks, and these were some of the topics that came up. So um is it your vocabulary in general, or is it vocabulary on a specific topic that we need to revise? If so, that gives you something tangible to work on. If I need to if I know I need to work on my animal vocabulary, then I can go and start reading around that topic and start reviewing language, listening to podcasts or BBC Life or reading The Guardian on articles connected to nature and plants and animals, if that's something that I need to work on. And then once you've been doing that for several weeks and you've improved in that area, we can go back and try that listening task again and see if we have improved. Okay, so it could be technique, it could be vocabulary, um, it could be along with technique, which is the most common error, it could be distractors in the exam. So they're always trying to trick you, they're always trying to um make you choose a different answer, and again, that's something that we have various techniques for to help with that. Um, so this could be another problem, or it could be the accent or speed of the person talking. So, how do we know if this is the issue? Is when you're listening, do you understand what they're saying, or is it too fast for you? Are we missing things? Do we not understand because of vocabulary, or do we not understand because of the speed or the accent? Again, is different issues. Once you work out that, then we can improve on that thing. If it's they're speaking too fast, then we need to get used to native speaker speed when listening. Um, but if it's because of vocabulary, then we need to work on the vocabulary. Okay, so these are usually the three issues that people have when they're doing the listening exam. So that's what I mean by analyzing your answers, breaking it down into what the small tangible problem is that you can fix before you do another task. And of course, adding on to that analysis stage is getting feedback. I always say to all my students, every single week, if you're doing that analysis stage and you're still not sure what your answers are, if you're still not sure why you got that wrong, then ask for help. Ask for feedback, that's my job. That's my superpower, that's where I come in. Um get help on what you don't understand. There's no shame in asking for help. Um if you got nine out of ten correct, fantastic, great job, that's brilliant. Um, but if you got two out of ten correct, that's when I really want to hear from you, and that's when I want to to to help you understand the why. Um, there's no shame, there's no embarrassment on having a bad day in the exam. Most important thing is to think that your grades, your results in the exam are not a reflection of you as a person or of your English level. Again, half of this is technique, and native speakers will fail this exam if they don't learn the technique and they don't study for it. It is a very difficult exam. Okay, so there's no shame in getting things wrong. We need to think of mistakes logically, we need to think of them scientifically as just evidence of things that we don't know yet, or things we need to practice and things that we need to work on. Okay, they do not they're not necessarily a reflection of your level of English, and they're definitely not a reflection of you as a person. So please don't ever be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help if you need it. Okay. In fact, I had this, and the reason this pops to into my mind is I had this last week with a student who um was struggling with listening part four. And you know, we tried various different techniques, and uh scores weren't improving, scores weren't improving, so but the student was never taking the analysis to the next stage and asking for that help when they didn't understand something. So I went into kind of tough teacher mode, I went into um yeah, bad cop mode, hmm? And I said, You need to uh ask me questions every single time. This is a non-negotiable. Whenever you do a task and you get something wrong or we don't understand it, you need to ask me. Um, and so they did, they started messaging me. Uh, and uh they came to me last week and said, God, Cheryl, I don't want to send this, I'm embarrassed by this score. Um uh, I actually I didn't get any of them right, and I was so embarrassed, and I don't want to send this to you. But I was like, this is the most important message you can send because this is how we're going to improve and get better. And the thing was, taking that big step and sending that message to me, despite feeling a bit embarrassed about it, um, and again, no judgment at all, like this is what I'm here to help with. But by sending that, I was able to make this student a little personalized video showing them exactly what to do and exactly how to improve, and then they went away and did another test after watching this. I think it was 15-20-minute little video I made them, and their scores went up 50%. 50% from 15 minutes of watching a video, 50% improvement. That's wild, that's crazy, and that's it. Wasn't necessarily that 15 minutes training that that helped them, it was taking that big leap, taking that big step and asking for help, even if it felt uncomfortable and even if it felt scary. Okay, so please, please, please do not underestimate the importance of this step of analysis, and if you need the help, asking for it and getting that feedback. Most important thing. Number three on my list is quality over quantity. Okay, quality over quantity. This is something that I'm very big on. Um, and it's something that I have been guilty of neglecting myself in parts of my business um over the past few years, is rushing to tick things off the list, rushing to just get things done rather than truly working on the task and really understanding it, um, just going through the motions to get it off my list. So when you have tasks that you need to do, when you have your list of weaknesses, the things that you need to work on, it's not going to get you to your goal faster by whizzing through those things, uh, watching training on two times the speed, or um just watching things and not then not putting them into practice, or doing tasks and not doing that analysis stage just to get it done fast. Um the key is taking your time, making sure you understand something really well, making sure you ask questions if you don't, um, and really kind of getting that in-depth knowledge before moving on to the next thing. Yes, it will take a little bit longer, but in the long run, it will be faster than doing many things at 50% and then having to go back and do them again, and then go back and do them again because we haven't got it at 100%. I always likened this to like buying a cheap pair of shoes. I remember I went a couple of weeks ago, I needed to go buy a new pair of shoes for walking the dogs in. Um, where I live is I have I live in between two ravines, and they're very rocky, they're very muddy. Um, so you need kind of trail running shoes uh or shoes with good grip to to go in the the ravine, the ravines, barrancos, they call them here in Spain. So to go into these ravines, you need a good pair of shoes. And I'd bought well, a reasonable pair of shoes. Um I I'd bought, and um, you know, they had good grip, but they weren't very robust, they weren't very sturdy, but they looked pretty, and I liked the colour of them, if I'm being honest. Um, so I bought these shoes, and about three months later they broke, like the the top of them, it was made of mesh material, and they broke like hitting them against rocks and things. They broke within three months, and so I had to buy another pair, and I just bought the same brand again because I like the colour of the shoes. I I didn't learn my lesson. Um, so same thing happened, and they broke in exactly the same place, and my partner also had the same shoes in a different colour. We we didn't get matching trainers, um, not yet, anyway. Um, so and they broke in the same place, so they were always breaking in the same place, and um eventually we went to to a shoe shop and I bought um in the end uh a very expensive pair of shoes which were a bit ugly. I don't they were black uh with yellow bits on them, and they weren't very pretty, but they were the best pair of shoes for the Barrancos, for the ravines that I've ever had. And the guy in the shop shoe shop told me, because I I told him the ones that I had before, and he was like, Yeah, you can't be wearing those in in ravines. Uh yeah, that that's not good. And he was like, for the amount of money that you've spent on these uh on three pairs of trainers, um, it it was actually cheaper to buy the more expensive pair that's gonna last you a couple of years, rather than every three months having to replace these um these cheaper shoes. Um, and I was like, oh god, that is that is so true. Uh, and I think that's something that I can lead back into here. Uh, you think that we're um saving time by going through tasks quickly, and it's very satisfying taking them off the list, but in the long run, it takes us longer because we have to go back and revisit that thing and again and again and again. Okay, so take a little bit extra time, do things properly. Your future self will thank you in the end, because then you will properly understand the thing. Point number four. So we've got working on our weaknesses, making sure we analyze our tasks and ask for help if we need to, quality over quantity. Number four is um avoidance, avoidance, okay, avoidance of tasks. So usually I find that the thing that we don't want to work on, the thing that we don't like doing, is usually the thing that we need to work on the most. Uh I see it with me all the time in the gym. The task I hate doing, that horrible assault bike, where uh uh you know it's got the arms that move and you cycle, and the faster you cycle, the harder it gets, and you feel like vomiting after you've been on it for about a minute. That horrible bike. So the thing that I hate doing is the probably the thing I need to work on the most. I'm really good at lifting weights. Uh I'm one of the strongest women in the gym, and I like being like, yeah, look at me. Um but when it comes to cardio, I am awful, awful, awful. Um, probably because I avoid it like the plague. So I tend to find that this happens with exams as well, with English. The thing you need to work on, we avoid doing. Maybe it's writing, maybe you don't like writing it. Uh god, it's gonna take ages and it's a big task, and uh, I don't want to do it. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it the weekend. I'll do it next week. And it just gets pushed and pushed and pushed. That task that you're avoiding doing, I highly recommend putting it as a priority for your week. Putting it on Monday. Putting it on Monday morning. Putting it on task one for whatever you have to do in the week. We're not moving on to any other tasks until we get that avoidance task done and out the way. Number one, you're going to feel really good about yourself for getting it done. Number two, you're probably working on something that you really needed to. So it's going to help push you forward. It's going to be one of the big movers of the needle. And number three, you'll probably find after you've done it that it wasn't actually as bad as you thought. Now I'm not saying the assault bike in the gym is not as bad as I thought. It is, it's awful, it's horrible. I uh I have puked after being on it. I have thrown up after being on it. Puke is a is a slang word for vomit. I have puked after being on that horrible bike, but I feel very satisfied after I've done it. I'm like, yeah, walking up the road, going back home, uh it gives you a good sense of achievement. So um do that task, do it first thing, do it on a Monday, get it out of the way, you're gonna feel so much better, and it's going to move the needle. Okay? And final rule of our accelerator method for this week. We do have a few more rules, but we're gonna go through five today. Final rule with the accelerator method is having a positive mindset. Okay, keeping positive on this journey. This is a long journey. You cannot prepare for the Cambridge Advanced exam in a couple of weeks. Even a native speaker would not prepare for this exam in a couple of weeks. If I had to prepare my mum today for this exam, I would take about the same amount of time. I would take about six months to prepare her for the exam. Because she's gonna have to learn the entire technique for the exam. She's not done exams before, um, so she's gonna have to practice it. Yes, she has the language skills, but she doesn't know how to show off to pass an exam. So there's a whole lot of things that she would need to learn to pass this exam, and that's a native speaker. As a learner of English, it's gonna take you at least six months to prepare for this exam. If your English level is not quite C1 yet, if we haven't kind of completed C1 level, if we've just finished B2 and we have to complete C1 level and prepare for the exam if we've never done a Cambridge exam before, it's gonna take longer than six months to prepare for this exam. That's not a bad thing. Um when you're pro progressing while you're preparing for the exam, it doesn't again mean that you're bad at English or a slow learner because it's taking six months to prepare for exam. That is the minimum time, super fast, to prepare for an exam. Okay, six to twelve months with me would be kind of what we would be looking for to prepare for an exam. If you're kind of in an academy working through a course book from cover to cover, we're looking more at a couple of years to prepare for an exam. Okay, so it's a long journey, and when you first start your journey, you're super excited, like whoo, this is gonna be amazing, I'm gonna improve so quickly, it's gonna be great. Um, but inevitably your motivation is going to dip, it's going to go down, and that's perfectly normal when you start any journey or anything that's new. Um, it's a bit of a roller coaster of emotions, okay? We want to prepare for that roller coaster of emotions. Um, and we want to have a positive mindset going forward because sometimes maybe you've been studying for two months or three months, and we see that your scores have gone in the exam from maybe 50% to 60% in three months, and you might be thinking, Oh my god, that's just so slow. I've only improved 10% in three months. Um, I just I'm just not where I wanted to be. Remember that first of all, we're improving. That is amazing. But if your scores were to go from 50% to 90, 95% or 100% in three months, then we wouldn't be making you go take a six-month course. I wouldn't be saying that the exam takes six months to prepare for. I would be telling you it takes three months on average to prepare for. And if you were scoring 90 to 95% in the exam, I would be sending you off to go and do your exam, get a grade A, get a C2 level in your exam. Okay, it takes time to prepare for these exams. So we want to celebrate every little win that we have along the way. If our scores go up 10%, that's bloody amazing. That is fantastic, that is huge. That's a difference between a pass and a fail, or a grade B and a or a grade C and a grade A, which is a C1 and a C2 level. A fail is a B2 level, a pass is a C1 level, a C is a C1, an A is a C2. 10% is huge, it's a difference between levels. So focusing on the positive can really help you kind of stay motivated on your journey. Positives can be, again, not score-based. Positives could be um like uh Anna, who was feeling more confident speaking because she was going to so many speaking lessons. We have unlimited speaking lessons, and she was going to so many that after six weeks on the course, she was um she was able to speak up in a meeting at work that was in English for the first time ever. She actually contributed to the meeting in English because she felt more confident. That's a massive win. Um writing an essay for the first time since you've been at school, huge win. Reading a book for the very first time in English, we have book club included as part of our courses, and the amount of students that come along to book club and have that satisfaction of reading a book in another language for the very first time. I remember when I first did it in Spanish and it was just this amazing feeling, and I still get the feeling that when I read books in another language, I like I feel really proud of myself that you know that I did that. So these are all wins that we can take, even just on a week where you're feeling like life is hard and we're really busy and stuff happens, which it does with everyone, kids are sick, um we've got dentist appointments, um uh, you know, I have to take my dogs to the vet or whatever it is. Like things happen in life, but on those days, thinking about okay, what's the positive? What have I been doing that can move me forward? It could be our win, or positive could be I did uh a reading part 7 exercise, and that was the task that I was avoiding, but I did it, and I did it on Monday, uh, and I feel really proud of myself. Uh, it doesn't matter about the score, the fact that I did that thing. Uh or I went to a speaking class even though I was feeling nervous about speaking with other people, but I did it, and uh and that's my goal for the week, and that's what I did. Or I studied for 10 minutes today, even though it was an incredibly busy day, but I instead of just ignoring it, I did 10 minutes. It wasn't my 45 minutes that I initially intended, but I got that 10 minutes in. That is a massive win and something that you should be really proud of. Or, of course, like the student I was speaking about last week who sent me their questions, who asked for help, even though they felt a bit embarrassed about doing it. Absolutely bloody massive win. Okay, so take those wins. Um, what I do with my partner at the end of every day when we're in bed, we talk about our three happy things from the day, or three things that went well from the day. Um, so these do not have to be big things, these can be little tiny things, but we always have to say three things that went well that day, and it's really, really nice, and it's a really nice way to end the day, kind of put your brain in a kind of a positive mindset before you go to sleep. Um, I find it kind of stops me having weird anxiety dreams in my sleep, but something you can try as well. Um, so think about three happy things, or with your English, three little wins for every day. Um, and uh do them at the end of every single day. Get into the habit of doing that. Um, and I genuinely think it's really effective, and it's something that people neglect in learning languages, especially exams, where we're there for the long run, where we're there for kind of six to twelve months. So it's something I want you guys to try out and let me know how you get on with it. Let me know what your wins are. I'd love to hear them. I love to hear wins. Um, and guys, we're going to finish there on that positive note for today. Uh, have an incredible week, and I will see you next week in our Monday podcast.