Exam Techniques for Active English 6 Before you

Exam Techniques for Active English 6

Before you start, you’d better know… l Test Form: Written only Next we will focus on 1. Final exam structure 2. Exam-taking techniques l

Final exam structure (1) Section Part Time Points I. Listening comprehension Conversation 5 min. 5 points Monologue 5 min. 15 points II. Vocabulary and grammar Vocabulary 10 min. 10 points grammar 10 min. 10 points III. Language proficiency Paraphrase 10 min. 10 points translation 20 min. 20 points IV. Reading comprehension Passage 1 10 min. 10 points Passage 2 40 min. 20 points

Final exam structure (2) Section Part Item types Focus I. Listening comprehension Conversation Multiple choices or T/F Listen for detailed information Monologue T/F Listen for general idea and details Vocabulary Multiple Vocabulary and choices or collocations filling-in-blanks grammar Multiple Vocabulary, choices or phrases, and filling-in-blanks grammar II. Vocabulary and grammar

Final exam structure (3) Section Part Item types Focus III. Language proficiency Paraphrase Understanding of core texts Translation from Chinese to English Key words, phrases, and patterns Passage 1 Multiple choices or T/F Understanding of a short passage Passage 2 Short answer questions, and summary Understanding and expression IV. Reading comprehension

Test Form: Written Final exam structure l Exam-taking techniques l

Exam-taking techniques (0) l Before we start, it is necessary to remind yourself that: l A good technique can be of great help! l Next, enjoy the following techniques and hope it will be of your help.

Exam-taking techniques (1) Listening comprehension ¡ Hint 1: Proper time-allocation ¡ If you are quite familiar with the directions through stimulation test, you can make use of the direction-reading time to preview the questions. ¡ Do not spend too much time on one single question ¡ Hint 2: Make notes while listening Aim of listening: ¡ To get either the general idea or the detailed information ¡

Exam-taking techniques (2) Listening comprehension l How to achieve a better performance in listening? ¡ Go through all the questions before listening in order to get the rough idea of the passage; ¡ You will listen to monologue for the second time, so you’d better concentrate on its main idea in the first time ¡ Pay special attention to those mentioned in the questions ¡ Pay special attention to numerals such as year, month, date, and so on while listening ¡ Hint 3: Be careful of spelling and verb forms l

Exam-taking techniques (3) l l Vocabulary Form 1: Filling in blanks with appropriate words provided in the table ¡ 1. 2. 3. 4. Do it step by step: Getting familiar with word meaning and form in the table Choosing from the words in the table according to the meaning of each sentence Checking your answers: excluding other possibilities Making sure that you use the words with their correct spelling and appropriate forms

Exam-taking techniques (4) Time to practice: choose a word from the four words listed below to complete each sentence. Encompass, catastrophic, hypothesize, replenish, 1. 2. 3. 4. We need to ____ the food cupboard this weekend. New York claims a well-organized public education system _____ nearly 900 schools. The theory which ____ that the Earth revolved around the Sun once caused heated debates among the scientists in those days. The pollution of underground water may produce a ______ impact on the global environment.

Exam-taking techniques (5) l 1. 2. 3. 4. Now, ask yourself: Do I know all the 4 words/phrases? What are the parts of speech of them? What sentential component is missing in each sentence? Can I guess out the missing word according to the sentence meaning? Can the most difficult one be done through exclusion?

Exam-taking techniques (6) Note: You may choose the right word, but did you use the correct form? 1. 2. 3. 4. We need to replenish the food cupboard this weekend. New York claims a well-organized public education system encompassing nearly 900 schools. The theory which hypothesized that the Earth revolved around the Sun once caused heated debates among the scientists in those days. The pollution of underground water may produce a catastrophic impact on the global environment.

Exam-taking techniques (7) l Vocabulary: Multiple choices How to figure out the best answer? ¡ Choose the best word according to word definitions ¡ Make a guess on the best word according to the sentence meaning ¡ Fixed collocation sometimes plays the key role in deciding on the right choice. ¡ The context can also provide some clues.

Exam-taking techniques (8) l Grammar: ¡ proofreading What are some frequently occurred mistakes in this part? l Vocabulary Spelling l Collocation (fixed collocation or grammatical collocation) l Sentence fragments l Verb forms and tense l Conjunction l Preposition l Punctuation l ……

Exam-taking techniques (9) ¡ How to do a proofreading Go through the paragraph quickly to learn its main idea l Go through it again in detail and pay special attention to the above mentioned problem areas and more if you have met l You should also notice the logic of the paragraph l ¡ Next, let’s go for a practice together.

Exam-taking techniques (10) A nine-year-old girl dashed through flames pulling her younger 1. ____ brother for safety yesterday evening in Chao Yang District. The 2. ____ little boy played with matches near some lanterns which his 3. ____ family putting up for the Lantern Festival, when several of them 4. ____ were catching fire. The older girl said that she was standing in the 5. ____

Exam-taking techniques (11) kitchen when she hear her baby brother screaming and ran to help 6. ____ him. She dragged her brother to the bathroom and switched on 7. ____ the water to put off the fire. The doctors at the local hospital 8. ____ praised the young heroine for her quick thoughts and said her 9. ____ brother’s burns will heal in time. 10. ____

Exam-taking techniques (12) A nine-year-old girl dashed through flames pulling her younger 1. to pull brother for safety yesterday evening in Chao Yang District. The 2. to little boy played with matches near some lanterns which his 3. was playing family putting up for the Lantern Festival, when several of them 4. put were catching fire. The older girl said that she was standing in the 5. caught

Exam-taking techniques (13) kitchen when she hear her baby brother screaming and ran to help 6. heard him. She dragged her brother to the bathroom and switched on 7. turned the water to put off the fire. The doctors at the local hospital 8. out praised the young heroine for her quick thoughts and said her 9. thinking brother’s burns will heal in time. 10. would

Exam-taking techniques (14) Cloze test § Grammatical rules § Context clue (the missing word might appear before or after the blank ) § Coherence of the passage § Collocations (esp. fixed collocation ) § Multiple choices ¡ Verb forms ¡ Collocations ¡ Idiom ¡ …. . §

Exam-taking techniques (15) l Language proficiency: paraphrase What is paraphrase l Express the same meaning in different words, usually to make the sentence easily understood ¡ How to do paraphrase l Using simple words to explain difficult ones l Rephrasing the sentence structure l Dividing a long sentence into several short sentences l …… Time for you to practice… ¡

Exam-taking techniques (16) 1. Yet, ironically, it’s the thing most consistently overlooked, and most widely used as a final resting place for our waste. Yet, on the contrary, we have all along ignored it and have largely polluted it with our waste. 2. He was now a seasoned veteran in the search for employment, and he knew they wanted him. He was now quite an experienced man in searching for jobs and he knew that they wanted him.

Exam-taking techniques (17) l Translation ¡ Using from Chinese to English patterns, phrases or words provided ¡ Avoid grammatical mistakes ¡ Understand the Chinese logic and add necessary conjunctions ¡ Sentence structure can be various ¡ Read for a second time when you finished

Exam-taking techniques (18) � 然水� 我� 的日常生活非常重要，它的价� 却往往被低估 了。(underestimate) Important as it is for our daily life, we have often underestimated the value of water. 2. � 月的降雨使水� 的水量增加，所以我� 要警惕洪水的� 生。 (be alert to) Months of rain has increased the amount of water in the reservoir, so we must be alert to the possibility of a flood. 3. 他衣着朴素，看上去普普通通，所以他怎么也不明白� 什么在 一� 人中小� 偏偏� 中了他。(out of all) He was dressed in plain clothes and looked ordinary, so he could not understand why the thief had chosen him out of all the passengers. 1.

Exam-taking techniques (19) l Reading comprehension: ¡ Multiple ¡ choices and Answer Questions Multiple choices ¡ Read for general idea and structure ¡ Completing multiple choices while reading in detail the part of most relevance

Exam-taking techniques (20) Short Answer Questions (SAQ) Hint: Your answer must be concise and precise! Not necessarily be a full sentence. Key phrases or words are O. K. Questions are usually about: 1. Specific information (a term, a definition etc. ) 2. Detailed information 3. Relevant information For 1 -3 questions, you can usually get the answer from the passage directly.

Exam-taking techniques (21) Sometimes, questions can be : 4. key argument of the passage 5. main idea of the passage For questions 4 and 5, l you have to rephrase your sentence with your own words, and l avoid grammatical mistakes in answering questions

Exam-taking techniques (22) Summary Writing What is a summary? l A summary states briefly the essentials of a passage. It is not a single paragraph, but a group of coherently stated sentences that summarize the essence of the passage. How to write a summary? l Read the passage carefully to get the exact meaning. Make notes to ensure nothing important is left out. l Based on your notes, organize the sentences in your own words. l Check whether the first sentence is a general statement about what is to follow and whether it is broad enough to cover the following contents.

Summary Form of the final exam Final exam structure What do we cover today? Methods to answer different types of questions

You should be more confident now, right? Questions from you are welcome!

This is the end of our exam techniques. Thank you and good luck!