Brothers’ Sake Project - Help students pass B English examination and help people who truly want to LEARN English
Initial words:
We
launch this project in order to help students who want to pass the B
English Examination, especially students who are studying in University
of Social sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City (USSH). This is the
place that we will share our experiences on how to pass the exam.
According
to the USSH Office of Academic Affairs, one survey is revealed recently
shows that every year, we have about 30 – 40% students can’t pass the B
exam in English and can’t graduate from our school on due dates. So in
my opinion, I think that it’s high time that we launched a project to
help students solve problems on the exam.
This project
aims at people who want to find out useful information about the exam as
well as tips and tricks but don’t know where to ask. It will be a
trusted resource for you. We believe that it is about to help you have
elementary knowledge, first familiarity and a little bit of overall
glimpse about the exam.
In this project, we have: graduate
students (Ms. Hà, Ms. Hiếu Hạnh); undergraduate students (Mr. Anh Tú,
Ms. Hằng, Mr. Đăng); professors (Ms. Huyền, Ms. Nhân, Ms. Lê, Mr. Thông)
are available to help us. They all have a good command of English and
have experiences in English learning as well.
Several
people I’ve mentioned above have passed the B English exam in our
university already. Some others have got experiences in English learning
and skills in preparing for other exams such as IELTS, TOELF IBT. Now
we hope those people will take some time to help their friends, their
classmates and their junior students pass the exam.
We hope you will get some tips and gain experiences from them and pass the exam with flying colors.
Parts of the exam:
In
B English examination in our university, we have three parts that you
have to work on: listening, reading and finally we have speaking. We
don’t have writing test. Well actually in other words we can say that we
don’t have to write English in genuine contexts. However, in reading
test, you have to do several tasks including writing several sort
sentences. It is believed that they aren’t as very hard as you write in
other exams like IELTS or TOELT. So don’t worry too much, after taking
the exam, you will see that it is not as difficult as you thought. Of
course, if you are well-prepared for the exam.
We will discuss every part in the test:
- Listening test
- Reading test
- Speaking test
Now we will give you some tips and tricks on those tests one by one.
1. Listening test:
First
of all, in B English Examination we have listening test. We can say
that is the hardest part you have to work on. For all our students,
listening test is always a complicated test that we have to do. And for
many reasons, this is the part that many students failed or got low
grades. We have many students have to take this test for over three
times to pass it over.
In listening test, it takes you
about 20 minutes. You will hear four parts and each part will be spoken
two times. In this test, we have four mini parts:
Part 1:
Directions:
In this part you will hear a question spoken in English, followed by
three printed responses. Make your answer on your answer sheet. You will
hear the recording twice.
Example:
- _______________?
- I’m from London.
- I’m fine. Thank you, and you?
- I’m twenty-two years old.
You will hear: “Where are you from?”
You
have to hear what the question is and understand all the answers so
that you will choose the correct answer. Taking from our example above,
the correct answer that’s best for the question is answer A. “Where are
you from?”, so the correct answer is “I’m from London.”
According to the TOEIC test, they give us some tips and tricks as below:
Tips:
- The first word of the question will help you to know what kind of answer is required.
What, where, who, why, how – ask for information.
Do, does, did, are, is, will, can – usually need a “yes” or “no” answer.
- Questions that contain “or” and require a choice never have yes/no answers.
“Did you stay home or go out last night?” “I went to a movie.”
- Sometimes you will hear a statement, not a question. However, it still requires an answer.
“Thanks for dinner.” “You’re welcome.”
Tricks:
Pay attention to words that sound the same (homonyms).
e.g: two, too, to
Look out for tag questions that are added to the end of statements.
That movie was great, wasn’t it?
Watch out for indirect answers. Sometimes the answer to a yes/no question does not include the words “yes” or “no”.
e.g: “Is there enough gas in the car?” “I just filled it yesterday.”
Part 2:
Directions:
In this part of the test, you will hear several conversations between
two people. In your paper test you will read one (or two) question(s)
about each conversation. You are to choose the best answer to each
question and mark it on the answer sheet.
According to the TOEIC test, they give us some tips and tricks as below:
Tips:
- Look at the question before the dialog begins. If you have time, look at the answers as well.
- While you are listening to the dialog, try to imagine where the speakers are.
- Read all the answers before making your choice.
Tricks:
- Watch
out for answers that are true, but not related to the question. Don’t
answer too quickly. Read all the options before you choose.
- Watch
out for distracting numbers. These may include dates, times, and
numbers of things or people. Preview the question to help you listen for
the right information.
Parts 3:
Directions:
In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks. There are
two questions followed with four answers after each talk. You are to
choose the best answer to each question and mark on your answer sheet.
According to the TOEIC test, they give us some tips and tricks as below:
Tips:
- Listen
closely to the introduction preceding the talk. It will tell you the
number of the questions related to the talk. It will also tell you what
type of information you will hear (news report, weather report,
advertisement, recorded message, announcement, etc.).
- Try to preview the questions before the talk begins. This will help you listen for the information required by the questions.
- Begin to answer the questions as soon as the talk is finished. Don’t wait for the speaker.
Tricks:
- Incorrect answers may contain similar sounding words.
e.g: The woman is typing at the table.
- Incorrect answers may give you wrong pronouns, numbers and locations.
e.g: He is typing at the table./ There are two typewriters./ The woman is sitting under the table.
- Incorrect answers may include a correct word.
e.g: The typewriter is for sale./ The woman is sitting with some friends.
- Listen
closely to the introduction preceding the talk. It will tell you the
number of the questions related to the talk. It will also tell you what
type of information you will hear (news report, weather report,
advertisement, recorded message, announcement, etc.).
- Try to preview the questions before the talk begins. This will help you listen for the information required by the questions.
- Begin to answer the questions as soon as the talk is finished. Don’t wait for the speaker.
Part 4:
Directions:
In this section, you will hear a talk about certain topics. Listen and
fill the numbered spaces. Write your answer on the answer sheet.
Tips and tricks of this part are similar to that of part 1, 2, 3 above.
General recommendations:
If
you want to pass the test with flying colors, you have to learn many
words and have a good range of vocabularies. Though the test has many
speakers and you will hear variety of accents, I can tell you that
almost of the speakers you hear have American accent. So if you want to
familiarize with the test before hand, you can hear video from many
books such as Know How (1, 2, 3) – Oxford University Press; TOEIC
(Starter TOEIC, Developing TOEIC, TOEIC Analyst, Target TOEIC) – Compass
Publishing, Vietnamese Edition published by First News – Tri Viet.
Those books are designed for students from beginner to intermediate
level of English. I think they will help you all despite your different
backgrounds of English proficiency.
2. Reading test:
In
reading test, you will perform how well you understand written English
and how well your English grammar is. This test will last about 60
minutes and you also have four mini parts in this one.
Part 1: Reading Comprehension
Directions: In this part, you will read two passages and choose the best answer to each question. Record your answers on the answer sheet.
Tips:
In
this part you will read various topics. Several topics are really
complicated especially topics are related to natural sciences such as
topics referring to wild animals, plants, physics, chemistry or
geography.
Many students find out that it is very difficult
because they usually get stuck when they see too many new words in a
context. We recommend you should follow these steps followed:
- Don’t choose answers quickly, we recommend that you read the passage from the beginning to the end once at first.
- After that you read all questions and answers on your test paper carefully.
- Reread the passage once again.
- Turn back to the passage and underline sentences you think they are related to the questions and answers.
- Find out facts and details and determine which answers you think are correct.
Don’t
worry too much about new vocabularies. You can guess their meanings
from the general context. If you can’t understand the meaning of one
word, ignore it and try to work on other works. We’d prefer to
understand the whole idea of the passage rather than understand all
sentences one by one.
If you don’t fully grasp the meaning of one
word, try to guess what kind words this word belongs to: noun, verb,
adjective, adverb… This step may help you choose the answer more
accurately.
Part 2: Grammar and Vocabulary
Directions:
In this part you will have 15 incomplete sentences. Beneath each
sentence you will see four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Choose
the one word or phrase that best completes the sentence. Record your
answers on your answer sheet.
Example:
- Our friends offered _____ us some of their camping equipment for our trip to the mountains.
- lending B. to lend C. to have lent D. on lending
Hint: After “offer” you add “to infinitive” therefore you should choose “to lend”. So the correct answer is B.
The
answer C is grammatically correct but it expresses a different meaning.
“To have +past participle” means something you should have done but you
didn’t do in the past.
Example: I should have learnt English carefully when I was in university.
The
sentence above expresses the meaning that you didn’t learn English
carefully when you were in university and now you regret because of it.
Tips:
It
is believed that this part is closely to your experiences in test
taking as you were in high school. This part tests how well you
understand written English; how well your English grammar is and how
wide your English vocabularies. You should read the incomplete sentence
and all the answers carefully. You don’t have to know every word in the
incomplete sentence. Find out what kind word you need to fill the blank:
noun, verb, adjective, adverb…
3. Speaking test:
In
this section, I will give you information and help you pass speaking
test in general not only pass IELTS speaking test, TOELF speaking test
or B level speaking test as well. I hope this article below will help
you:
How to speak English?
It’s all a question of practice
There
are basically two types of speaking: spoken production (simply
producing words) and spoken interaction (speaking/conversing with other
people). Both are important, but this time we’re looking at spoken
production.
Spoken production is all about producing
language. It’s about speaking clearly and correctly. It’s your ability
to pronounce words, use the correct stress and intonation and select
words that are appropriate for your purpose. Spoken production
activities include reading a written text aloud, speaking from notes,
acting in a play, talking about your life, singing a song and telling a
story. It may also include giving presentations, expressing arguments in
a debate, giving a speech or making a sports commentary.
First,
let’s put speaking into perspective. Speaking in any language is
difficult... even in your own language. In fact, if you listen to
recordings of native English speakers, you’ll be surprised at how
“badly” many people speak spontaneously: there are examples of
hesitation, false starts, mumbling, unclear language and even errors.
Very few people can speak really well, and those who can, usually spend
hours preparing and practicing their speeches. The thing is that
speaking “well” depends on a lot of factors: your motivation, your
physical and mental state at the time of speaking, who you’re speaking
to, how well you know the topic, where you are, the time of day, and a
hundred other things.
The way to improve your speaking is
to practice. You could do some “shadowing”. This involves copying native
speakers who are speaking on audio or video recordings. Just get access
to an audio file, put on your headphones, press play and start speaking
at the same time as the native English speakers. This is a great way to
improve your pronunciation. You could also do the same with songs, by
singing along to your favorite songs. Another good technique is to read
aloud. This will help you practice saying the words and expressions.
Just get a copy of a text or book that you find interesting, and read
parts of it out loud.
Repetition is also important. Repeat key sentences and expressions over and over again until they become automatic. Do some language fluency drills with your teacher to build up fluency. Memorize chunks of language or entire paragraphs. This will really help. A lot of the language we use when speaking consists of set expressions and chunks of language that are repeated. Also, practice telling your favorite stories or anecdotes. Write them out first. Then, make notes and practice saying them to yourself... and then in public. The more you practice them, the better you’ll get at telling them, and soon you’ll be a story-telling expert.
Speaking well requires practice, and a lot of time and effort. Are you ready?
Good luck!
Written by Ho Quoc Nam
Inspired by Thu Lai 10/5/2010
Hồ Quốc Nam
