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:
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:
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:
Do, does, did, are, is, will, can – usually need a “yes” or “no” answer.
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:
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:
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:
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
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
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 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.
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.
- Sometimes you will hear a statement, not a question. However, it still requires an answer.
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.
- 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.
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.
- Incorrect answers may contain similar sounding words.
- Incorrect answers may give you wrong pronouns, numbers and locations.
- Incorrect answers may include a correct word.
- 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.
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
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
